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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2018  with  funding  from 
Getty  Research  Institute 


https://archive.org/details/amesonforgeryitsOOames 


AMES  ON  FORGERY 


AMES  ON  FORGERY 


ITS  DETECTION  AND  ILLUSTRATION 


WITH 

NUMEROUS  CAUSES  CELEBRES 

(illustrated) 


BY 

DANIEL  T.  AMES 


Founder  and  twenty  years  Editor  of  The  Penman’s  Art  Journal  of  New  York; 
Author  of  Ames’s  Compendium  of  Practical  and  Artistic  Penmanship, 
Ames’s  Alphabets,  Ames’s  Guide  to  Practical  Writing;  and 
thirty  years  Examiner  of  Contested  Handwriting 
in  Courts  of  Justice. 


SAN  FRANCISCO 
DANIEL  T.  AMES 

24  POST  STREET 

NEW  YORK 

AMES- ROLLINSON  COMPANY 

19  0  0 


■KjP 
93  (W 
fosi 

I  %o 


Entered  According  to  Act  of  Congress  in  the  Year  1899,  by 

DANIEL  T.  AMES, 

IN  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 


THE  GETTY  CENTER 
LIBRARY 


Over  fifty  noted  cases  explained 
and  illustrated,  making  more  than 
seventy  pages  of  engravings 

Many  of  the  cases  are  among 
the  most  celebrated  in  the  world. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 


Preface .  9 

Introductory .  13 


CHAPTER  I. 

Personality  in  handwriting  —  What  constitutes  personality,  and 
how  it  comes  into  writing  so  as  to  distinguish  the  writing 
of  one  person  from  that  of  another — No  two  handwritings 
can  possibly  be  identically  the  same — -Habit  of  writing  — 

How  formed,  and  how  it  operates  to  detect  and  illustrate 
forged  and  spurious  writing  —  School  versus  adult  writ¬ 
ing- —  Nations  as  well  as  individuals  are  distinguished  by 
their  writing  —  Eccentric  persons  develop  an  eccentric 
style  of  writing  —  Examples  of  eccentric  and  other  styles 
of  writing— Sex  in  writing .  19-42 

CHAPTER  II. 

Movements  in  writing  defined  and  illustrated  —  Styles  of  writ¬ 
ing:  angular,  semi-angular,  round-shaded,  upright,  and 
back-hand .  43-46 

CHAPTER  III. 

Writing  under  abnormal  circumstances  —  With  the  left  hand  — 

By  persons  intoxicated,  nervous,  assisted,  or  hypnotized 
—  With  pencil  or  stylographic  pen .  47-56 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Signatures  or  other  writing  never  written  twice  alike  —  How¬ 
land  will  contest .  57-5 8 

CHAPTER  V. 

Persons  do  not  always  recognize  their  own  signatures  — 

Notable  instances  cited .  59-6 1 


6 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Writing  over  folds  in  the  paper  and  one  ink-line  over  another — , 
Indications  by  which  the  facts  may  be  determined — Im¬ 
portant  cases  cited  and  illustrated .  62-67 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Methods  of  forgery,  their  detection  and  illustration  —  Forgery 
by  the  aid  of  a  tracing,  how  effected,  and  the  inevitable 
indications;  also,  free-hand  forgery,  and  the  methods  of 
its  detection . „ . .  68-72 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

The  use  of  expert  testimony  respecting  handwriting  —  His¬ 
torical  cases  in  English,  French,  and  American  courts, 
and  the  estimate  placed  upon  such  testimony  by  high 
judicial  authority .  73-83 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Sources  of  expert  knowledge,  and  who  may  give  testimony  as 

experts  — The  legal  definition  of  the  word  “expert”  ....  84-87 

CHAPTER  X. 

Experts  should  be  employed  by  the  court  —  They  should  be 


able  to  make  plain  the  reasons  for  their  opinions  —  Illus¬ 
trations  should  be  made  by  photographs,  or  with  crayon 
upon  blackboard  or  paper .  .  88-92 


CHAPTER  XI. 

Disguised  and  imitated  writing  —  Case  of  Everett  v.  Wilkinson 

illustrative  of  disguised  writing .  93-99 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Certainty  of  conclusions  reached  through  expert  comparisons 
of  writing — Must  vary  in  degree,  with  the  circumstances 
of  each  case  —  The  genuineness  or  ungenuineness  of  writ¬ 
ing  is  not  determined  by  any  one  thing,  but  by  a  series 
of  instances  where  the  true  characteristics  are  present  or 
absent,  as  the  case  may  be  —  Examples:  a  bank  case  in 
New  York,  and  the  Bird  case,  Los  Angeles,  California.  .  .  100-109 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


7 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Why  experts  differ  in  their  opinions  —  Not  all  who  give  testi¬ 
mony  as  experts  are  qualified  to  do  so— -Often  through 
the  seeking  of  attorneys,  incompetent  or  mercenary 
witnesses  are  employed  as  experts  to  disparage  the  testi¬ 
mony  of  skilled  and  honest  experts . 110-114 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Inserted  sheets  in  documents — -Added  or  changed  entries  in 
books  of  accounts  — Ink  and  pencil  erasures  —  Identifica¬ 
tion  of  typewriting . 115-118 


CHAPTER  XV. 

The  frequency  of  forgery  —  Largely  against  estates  —  Several 
ingenious  and  interesting  cases  cited  and  illustrated  —  The 
Fuller  case,  in  Newport,  Vermont  — The  Miser  Russell 
case,  in  New  York  City — A  forged  note  against  the  Jacob 
Erwin  estate,  Jersey  City,  N.  J.  —  Forged  notes  against 
the  Gillespie  estate,  Warsaw,  N.  Y . 1 19-129 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  Lewis  will  contest,  Hoboken,  N.  J.  —  Forgeries  against 
the  estate  of  James  G.  Fair,  San  Francisco,  Cal. — Forged 
will  of  A.  J.  Davis,  of  Butte,  Montana — -Forged  check 
and  note  against  the  Dodge  estate,  Plymouth,  N.  H.— 

Forged  deed,  Kingston,  N.  Y.  —  Baker  will  contest, 

Toronto  —  Gordon  will  contest,  Jersey  City,  N.  J. — 

Forgery  against  the  Redfield  estate,  Syracuse,  N.  Y. — 

The  Murdock  alleged  forgery,  Willows,  Cal. — The  Morey- 
Garfield  forged  letter  —  Cadet  Whittaker  case,  West 
Point  —  Collum-Blaisdell  alleged  forgery,  Minneapolis  — 

Botkin  murder  case,  San  Francisco  —  Dr.  Kennedy  mur¬ 
der  case,  New  York  —  Hunter-Long  forgery,  Philadelphia 
—  Becker  raised  draft,  San  F rancisco  (all  illustrated)  .  .  .  .  1 30-2 1 5 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

The  trial  of  Roland  B.  Molineux  in  New  York  for  the  murder 
of  Mrs.  Katharine  J.  Adams  by  means  of  poison  sent 
through  the  United  States  mail  (fully  illustrated) . 216-236 


8 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Report  of  the  writer  on  the  celebrated  Dreyfus  case,  Paris, 

France . 237-241 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

The  J  unius  Letters  —  Abstract  from  the  celebrated  work  of  Sir 
Edward  Twisleton,  embodying  the  report  of  the  famous 
English  expert,  Chabot,  on  the  authorship  of  the  Junius 
Letters  (with  numerous  examples  of  both  Junius’s  and 
Francis’s  writing) . . 242-254 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Qualifying  an  expert  witness  —  Use  of  photographs  and  black¬ 
board .  255-259 


CHAPTER  XXL 

Kinds  of  inks  —  Their  composition — Copying-ink  —  Safety 
ink  —  Colored  inks — Tests  of  inks,  for  the  purpose  of 
determining  their  identity  —  Ink  erasures  by  chemicals 
and  their  restoration  —  Evidence  as  to  the  relative 
ages  of  ink  upon  documents — Judging  of  the  colors 
of  inks . . 260-271 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

Paper  —  Materials  used  and  methods  of  manufacture  —  Water¬ 
mark  erasures,  etc . 272-275 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Divination  of  character  from  handwriting  —  Some  remarkable 

instances  quoted . 276-281 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Dermal  lines  of  the  thumb  as  a  means  of  personal  identity.  .  .  .282-283 


PREFACE. 


One  science  only  will  one  genius  fit, 

So  wide  is  art,  so  narrow  human  wit. — Pope. 

This  is  the  age  of  the  Specialist.  The  leader  and  recog¬ 
nized  authority  in  any  line  of  human  endeavor  is,  inevitably, 
one  whose  concentrated  thought  and  observation  have 
enabled  him  to  hew  his  way  to  the  light  of  Truth  through 
darkening  walls  that  to  the  mutable  many  are  impenetrable, 
inscrutable. 

Through  untold  ages  the  casual  millions  moved  and 
had  their  being  on  the  same  earth  that  we  occupy  to-day. 
The  sun  shone,  stars  twinkled,  lightnings  flashed,  flowers 
bloomed,  as  they  do  with  us.  The  same  potential  wonders 
of  the  Universe  were  omnipresent  then  as  now.  The  same 
great  primal  forces  of  Nature  existed,  but  there  were  none 
to  read  her  portentous  story, —  no  eye  keen  enough  to  pene¬ 
trate  the  great  alembic  of  her  mysterious  workings, —  no  ear 
attuned  to  the  delicate  measure  of  her  whispered  world- 
secrets, —  no  mind,  sensitized  by  the  sweat  of  exhaustive 
scientific  research,  to  read  her  riddles  for  the  glory  of  man 
and  his  immeasurable  benefit. 

The  discovery  of  a  New  World  awaited  through  slum¬ 
bering  ages  the  thoughtful  observations  of  a  Columbus. 
Not  until  subjected  to  the  profound  scrutiny  of  a  Copernicus 
were  the  old  revolving  heavens  transformed  into  a  new 
astronomy.  The  power  of  steam,  crying  in  vain  to  all  the 
myriads  who  had  peopled  the  earth  since  creation,  whispered 


IO 


PREFACE. 


into  the  attentive  ear  of  Watt  the  secret  that  revolutionized 
mechanical  industry.  So  electricity  remained  a  thing  of 
idle  wonder,  until  the  keen-observing  Morse  harnessed  it 
as  the  time-  and  space-annihilating  thought-messenger  of 
man.  To  Linnaeus  the  leaves  and  ilowers  were  a  perfect 
calendar,  clock,  and  compass.  Dropped  from  a  balloon  on 
any  part  of  the  earth,  he  could  tell  the  exact  location,  the 
season,  the  precise  hour  of  day  or  night.  With  a  few  dry 
bones  to  guide  his  sharpened  mind,  Cuvier  was  able  to 
rebuild  the  body  of  a  monster  whose  race  had  died  before 
human  records  began.  A  slight  aberration  of  planetary 
motion  conveyed  to  the  trained  eye  of  Herschel  intelli¬ 
gence  of  the  existence  of  another  member  of  our  solar  sys¬ 
tem  in  still  remoter  space.  As  hounds  by  means  of  a  highly 
specialized  physical  sense  track  the  unseen  quarry  to  its  lair, 
so  was  acutely  specialized  intellect  able  to  achieve  the 
unthinkable  triumph  of  tracking  this  errant  orb  over  its 
course  of  thousands  of  millions  of  miles,  of  measuring  it  and 
weighing  it  before  human  eyes  had  ever  seen  it ! 

And  so  through  the  whole  catalogue  of  human  achieve- 
ment,  it  is  the  Specialist  who  has  seen  clearly  where  the 
multitude  saw  nothing,  or  saw  but  dimly.  To  him  truly 
nature  has  been  an  open  book.  From  the  starry  heavens 
he  has  unraveled  deep  mysteries  of  the  spheres.  From  the 
rocks  of  the  earth  he  has  garnered  its  physical  history. 
From  the  crumbling  fossil  he  has  learned  the  fascinating 
story  of  life  on  the  earth,  from  protoplasmic  cell  to  man. 
The  gleanings  of  human  history  have  taught  him  states¬ 
manship.  And  thus  man  has  toiled  his  way  upward  from 
savagery  to  enlightenment.  By  constant  and  thoughtful 
exercise,  the  mind  and  hand  have  ever  taken  on  new  cun- 


PREFACE. 


I  1 

ning  and  facility,  whose  fruitage  becomes  richer  and  more 
abundant  with  the  accumulating  ages.  Witness  the  many 
wonderful  discoveries  and  inventions  that  distinguish  the 
nineteenth  century  beyond  all  that  have  preceded  it. 

As  in  those  large  matters  that  touch  life  at  its  roots  and 
reach  out  into  the  infinite,  so  in  the  ordinary  affairs  of  daily 
life  we  are  constantly  in  closest  touch  with  the  Specialist. 
He  prepares  our  food,  makes  our  clothes,  constructs  our 
houses.  He  teaches  us  at  school,  preaches  to  us,  doctors  us 
when  sick.  He  frames  our  laws  and  administers  them. 

It  is  as  a  Specialist  in  my  chosen  line  of  work  that  I  have 
prepared  this  volume.  I  have  not  sought  to  make  it  pro¬ 
foundly  scientific  or  punctiliously  literary,  but  rather  to 
present  in  a  plain  manner  some  facts  drawn  from  forty  years 
of  continuous  work  in  connection  with  the  chirographic  art, 
as  teacher,  author,  editor,  publisher,  and  professional  exami¬ 
ner  and  witness.  As  my  experience  in  the  latter  capacity 
covers  over  twelve  hundred  cases  in  which  the  genuineness 
of  handwriting  has  been  contested  in  courts  of  justice,  not 
only  in  the  American  metropolis,  but  throughout  the  United 
States  and  Canada,  also  in  England  and  France,  the  hope 
is  indulged  that  the  volume  may  be  found  of  genuine  use  to 
handwriting  investigators  in  promoting  the  ends  of  justice. 


No.  24  Post  Street, 
San  Francisco,  Cal. 


D.  T.  A. 


INTRODUCTION. 


An  artist  long  connected  with  one  of  the  largest  bank¬ 
note  companies  in  America  remarked  to  the  writer  that  he 
could  take  a  finished  engraving —  say,  an  elaborate  bond  or 
bank-note  made  by  his  company  —  and  identify,  infallibly, 
the  work  of  every  man  who  had  a  hand  in  its  production, 
even  though  there  might  be  a  large  number  of  different 
artists  represented.  More  than  that,  he  stated  that  if  a 
score  of  the  men  with  whom  he  had  worked  should  each 
draw  a  straight  line  an  inch  long,  under  normal  condi¬ 
tions,  he  could  pick  out  the  author  of  each  particular  line. 
This  seems  at  first  blush  an  extravagant  statement,  but 
probably  it  is  true.  It  simply  means  that  every  man  differs 
from  every  other  man  as  to  method,  nervous  force,  brain 
propulsion,  etc.;  and  that  while  these  bits  of  line  to  the 
ordinary  observer  would  be  exact  duplicates  one  of  another, 
to  the  eye  of  one  skilled  in  that  business,  and  by  long 
supervision  familiar  with  the  character  and  style  of  work 
turned  out  by  various  subordinates,  one  line  would  differ 
from  another  line  in  appearance  even  as  one  man  differs  from 
another. 

Of  course,  the  establishing  of  identity  on  so  slight  a 
foundation  presupposes  normal  conditions  and  circum¬ 
stances  of  execution.  If  those  twenty  men  when  they  were 
making  the  lines  knew  that  they  would  be  subjected  to 
scrutiny  with  a  view  to  establishing  identity,  it  is  highly 
probable  that  each  man  could  change  his  method  sufficiently 


INTRODUCTION. 


1 4 

to  make  such  identification  impossible.  One  man’s  habit 
might  be  to  make  a  line  with  a  quick  free-hand  stroke. 
Another  might  produce  his  by  the  aid  of  a  ruler.  It  would 
require  no  great  expert  skill  to  distinguish  a  fairly  radical  dif¬ 
ference  between  two  lines  executed  in  such  different  manners. 
If  A,  whose  custom  it  is  to  work  free-hand,  should  employ 
a  ruler  for  the  purpose  of  deception  and  modify  the  force  or 
rapidity  of  his  habitual  stroke,  he  might  very  well  be  able 
to  bury  his  own  identity;  but  even  then  the  line  thus  abnor¬ 
mally  made  would  be  sufficiently  different  from  a  line 
normally  made  by  B  (whose  natural  habit,  we  will  suppose, 
agrees  with  the  assumed  habit  of  A)  to  sufficiently  differen¬ 
tiate  the  products. 

In  a  word,  the  trained  expert  eye,  even  on  so  slight  a 
thing  as  a  simple  straight  line,  will  detect  certain  peculiar¬ 
ities  of  motion,  of  force,  of  pressure,  of  tool-mark,  etc.,  that 
in  normal  circumstances  the  result  will  stand  for  its  author 
just  as  his  photograph  stands  for  him.  Now,  this  being 
undoubtedly  true  within  certain  limitations,  how  more  than 
incontestable  must  be  the  proposition  to  any  rational  man 
that  if,  instead  of  a  simple  undeviating  pen-stroke,  lines  that 
run  to  curves  and  angles  and  slants,  and  shades  and  loops 
and  ticks,  and  enter  into  all  sorts  of  combinations,  such 
as  any  specimen  of  handwriting  must,  however  simple,  bear 
inherent  evidences  of  authorship  that  yield  their  secrets  to 
the  expert  examiner  as  the  hieroglyphics  on  an  Egyptian 
monument  do  to  a  properly  educated  antiquarian. 

That  is  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  expertism  in  hand¬ 
writing. 

Some  writer  has  well  said  that,  “Every  one  should  know 
something  about  everything,  and  everything  about  some- 


INTRODUCTION. 


15 


thing.”  One  who  has  been  sufficiently  observing,  indus¬ 
trious,  and  acute  of  understanding  to  acquire  a  practical 
knowledge  of  things  in  general,  and  an  exhaustive  knowl¬ 
edge  of  some  one  thing  in  particular,  is  the  ideal 
expert  upon  that  particular  thing.  Who  will  presume  that 
the  opinion  of  such  a  man  on  his  specialty  is  to  be  offset  or 
disparaged  by  the  opinion  of  another  whose  acquaintance 
with  that  particular  thing  is  only  general  or  casual — who 
has  considered  it  as  only  one  of  things  in  general? 

The  expert ,  then,  is  the  man  who  knows. 

It  is  important  to  consider  briefly  the  lines  of  study  and 
experience  calculated  to  confer  the  highest  order  of  skill 
upon  a  handwriting  expert. 

First — The  study  and  practice  of  handwriting  as  a 
teacher  in  the  constant  observation,  criticism,  and  sugges¬ 
tion  to  learners  afforded  by  such  an  occupation. 

Second — The  preparation  of  publications  devoted  to 
writing  and  other  phases  of  penmanship  involving  the 
careful  preparation  of  models  for  the  engraver  and  the 
critical  scrutiny  of  plate  reproductions  of  such  models. 

Third — The  preparation  of  critical  and  technical,  literary 
and  scientific  instructions  for  the  student  of  penmanship. 

Fourth  —  The  accumulated  experience  arising  from 
previous  examinations  of  disputed  writing  and  the  multi¬ 
plied  precedents  of  court  opinions,  rulings,  and  the  verdicts 
of  juries  in  cases  on  which  the  expert  has  been  previously 
employed. 

Fifth — The  occupation  of  an  engraver  or  lithographer 
where  the  frequent  reproduction  of  handwriting,  and 
especially  autographs,  is  involved.  The  careful  drawing  of 
his  models  upon  the  plates  prior  to  engraving  and  the 


i6 


INTRODUCTION. 


critical  comparison  between  models  and  reproductions  lead 
to  the  drawing  of  nice  distinctions  of  form  and  the  detec¬ 
tion  of  delicate  personal  or  individual  characteristics. 

Sixth — The  constant  professional  observation  of  hand¬ 
writing  in  any  line  of  financial  or  commercial  business  tends 
to  confer  expert  skill.  It  should  be  said  here,  however, 
that  the  average  bank  cashier  or  teller  bases  his  opinions 
and  his  identifications  generally  upon  the  pictorial  effect, 
without  recourse  to  those  minuter  and  more  delicate  points 
upon  which  the  skilled  expert  rightly  places  the  greatest 
reliance.  Such  testimony  can  not  be  compared  for  accuracy 
or  value  with  that  of  the  scientific  investigator  of  hand¬ 
writing.  It  follows,  then,  that  one  who  is  endowed  with 
more  than  ordinary  acuteness  of  observation,  and  has  had 
an  experience  so  varied  and  extensive  as  to  cover  most  of 
these  lines,  is  likely  to  be  best  fitted  for  critical  and  reliable 
expert  work. 

Opinions  of  eminent  judges  have  differed  widely  respect¬ 
ing  the  reliance  to  be  placed  upon  testimony  founded  upon 
expert  comparisons  of  handwriting ;  but  it  should  be 
remembered  that  those  opinions  have  been  no  more  varied 
than  has  been  the  character  and  qualifications  of  the  experts 
by  whose  testimony  they  have  been  called  forth. 

It  is  too  true  that  very  frequently  persons  have  been 
allowed  to  give  testimony  as  experts  who  were  utterly 
without  experience  in  any  calling  that  tends  to  bestow  the 
proper  qualifications  for  giving  expert  testimony.  Such 
witnesses  have  defamed  their  alleged  profession.  So  some 
judges  have  failed  to  adorn  the  bench,  and  have  been 
impeached ;  and  it  is  not  uncommon  that  lawyers  have 
been  disbarred  on  account  of  malpractice,  and  many  more 


INTRODUCTION. 


17 

should  have  been  from  incompetency.  In  this  work  are 
presented  a  large  number  of  cases,  most  of  them  illustrated, 
out  of  many  hundreds  which  have  come  within  the 
Author’s  experience  where  important  causes  have  hinged 
upon  handwriting  and  have  been  determined  chiefly  by 
facts  brought  to  light  through  the  research  of  skilled 
experts.  By  illustrations  much  of  the  methods  employed 
by  the  expert  to  discover  and  present  the  evidence  of 
forgery  in  a  clear  and  comprehensive  manner  to  court  and 
jury  may  be  observed,  and  their  true  value  estimated.  In 
most  of  these  cases  the  evidence  was  so  conclusive  as  to 
admit  of  no  reasonable  doubt. 

The  manner  that  personality  enters  originally  into  hand¬ 
writing,  and  becomes  an  unconscious  and  dominant  habit 
which  establishes  an  identity  to  every  handwriting  as  abso¬ 
lutely  as  does  physiognomy  to  the  person,  will  be  fully 
explained  and  illustrated. 


CHAPTER  I. 


PERSONALITY  IN  HANDWRITING  —  WHAT  CONSTITUTES  PERSONALITY 
AND  HOW  IT  COMES  INTO  WRITING  SO  AS  TO  DISTINGUISH  THE 
WRITING  OF  ONE  PERSON  FROM  THAT  OF  ANOTHER  —  NO  TWO 
HANDWRITINGS  CAN  POSSIBLY  BE  IDENTICALLY  THE  SAME  — 
HABIT  OF  WRITING  —  HOW  FORMED  AND  HOW  IT  OPERATES  TO 
DETECT  AND  ILLUSTRATE  FORGED  AND  SPURIOUS  WRITING  — 
SCHOOL  VS.  ADULT-WRITING  —  NATIONS  AS  WELL  AS  INDIVID¬ 
UALS  ARE  DISTINGUISHED  BY  THEIR  WRITING  —  ECCENTRIC 
PERSONS  DEVELOP  AN  ECCENTRIC  STYLE  OF  WRITING — EXAM¬ 
PLES  OF  ECCENTRIC  AND  OTHER  STYLES  OF  WRITING  —  SEX  IN 
WRITING. 


Assuredly  Nature  would  prompt  every  individual  to  have  a 
distinct  sort  of  writing,  as  she  has  given  a  peculiar  countenance, 
voice,  and  manner. — Disraeli. 

Coincident  personality  to  such  a  degree  as  to  lead  to  a 
mistaken  identity  of  persons  is  very  much  more  probable 
than  that  the  handwriting  of  two  individuals  should  so 
closely  approximate  each  other  as  to  be  mistaken  one  for 
the  other,  especially  when  subjected  to  a  careful  analytical 
study  and  comparison  by  a  capable  expert. 

The  features  that  go  to  make  up  the  human  physiog¬ 
nomy  are  but  few  when  compared  with  the  various  forms  of 
the  fifty -two  letters  of  the  alphabet,  large  and  small,  not  to 
mention  their  equally  various  relations,  proportions,  shades, 
spacing,  initials,  terminals,  crosses,  dots,  etc. 

That  all  these  various  features  when  woven  into  the 
fabric  of  handwriting  could  be  coincident  throughout  two 
habitual  handwritings  is  absolutely  impossible,  the  charac¬ 
teristic  distinctions  thus  inevitably  stamped  upon  one’s 


20 


COINCIDENT  WRITING  IMPOSSIBLE. 


writing  are  beyond  the  powers  of  numbers  to  enumerate. 
The  number  of  different  positions  in  which  the  twenty-six 
letters  of  the  alphabet  alone  may  be  placed  is  4,032,914,- 
611,265,046,555,840,000,  using  the  fifty-two  letters  (large 
and  small),  with  their  changed  forms  and  other  differences, 
as  above  stated ;  it  will  be  obvious  that  the  personalities 
of  an  habitual  handwriting  are  quite  beyond  the  power  of 
enumeration  to  express. 

In  nothing  else  that  a  man  does  and  leaves  of  record 
is  his  very  personality  so  interwoven  and  manifest  as  in  his 
handwriting.  Being  the  joint  product  of  the  mind  and 
hand  it  reflects  at  once  taste,  judgment,  industry,  and  the 
mental  quality  generally,  as  well  as  the  manual  dexterity,  of 
its  author.  Writing  is  first  acquired  by  thoughtful  study 
and  careful  practice,  and  chiefly,  at  present,  from  engraved 
copies  as  models,  analytically  taught.  It  is  therefore  formal, 
stiff,  and  impersonal  in  exact  proportion  to  the  learner’s 
success  in  imitating  his  copy.  Several  learners  practicing 
from  the  same  models,  under  the  instruction  of  a  skillful 
teacher,  will  often  acquire  a  school-hand  so  similar  that  were 
each  pupil  to  write  a  line  under  the  copy,  one  after  the 
other,  the  entire  writing  would  appear,  to  the  casual 
observer,  to  be  the  work  of  one  hand.  But  let  these  sev¬ 
eral  learners  enter  upon  the  active  duties  of  life,  and  practice 
their  hands  under  the  varying  environments  of  their  different 
employments,  and  at  once  a  change  is  observed.  First, 
the  modifications  are  slight,  then  they  become  more  and  more 
pronounced,  until  ultimately  each  hand  comes  to  be  uncon¬ 
sciously  evolutionized  from  the  stiff,  formal,  analytic,  and 
impersonal  school-hand  to  a  facile,  natural  expression  of  the 
writer’s  mental  and  physical  peculiarities,  and  stands  for  his 
personality,  as  does  his  physiognomy,  against  all  the  other 
writers  in  the  world.  From  long-continued  practice  these 
individualities,  which  are  numberless  and  chiefly  unnoted, 
come  to  constitute  a  fixed  and  unconscious  writing  habit 
implanted  in  the  muscles  of  the  fingers  and  arm,  rendering 


SCHOOL  VERSUS  ADULT  WRITING. 


21 


them  a  machine  that  automatically  performs  all  the  phe¬ 
nomena  of  writing  almost  as  arbitrarily  as  the  typewriting 
machine,  well-nigh  unaided  by  the  mind,  which  is  occupied 
by  its  own  functions  of  supplying  the  thought  which  the 
machine  records. 


SCHOOL  HAND.  HABITUAL  HAND. 


Thus  it  appears  that  what  is  designated  as  personality  or 
habit  in  writing  is  the  result  of  unconscious  modifications  of 
the  original  school-hand,  not  through  any  purpose  of  the 
mind  or  will,  but  directly  from  the  unconscious  force  of 
personal  peculiarities  and  environment  conjointly  operating 
through  the  mind  and  the  muscles  of  the  fingers,  hand,  and 
arm.  It  is  therefore  more  a  habit  of  muscle  than  of  mind; 
hence  its  existence  and  character  are  mostly  unknown  to  the 
writer,  and  cannot  be  so  changed  at  the  behest  of  the  will 
as  to  destroy  its  identity. 

Adult  Writing. — Any  adult  writer  has  only  to  refer  to 
his  own  handwriting  to  observe  the  fact  that  his  present 


22 


BASIS  OF  EXPERT  EXAMINATION. 


writing  differs  as  widely  from  that  which  he  acquired  at 
school  as  do  his  present  features  and  personal  appearance 
from  those  of  his  childhood.  Every  letter  of  the  alphabet 
has  changed  in  its  form,  shade,  proportion,  and  in  all  its 
relations  to  other  letters,  when  written  in  body  writing,  as 
well  as  the  facility  and  grace  with  which  it  is  executed, — 
and  who  can  discover  and  enumerate  all  these  changes  ? 
Yet  each  one  constitutes  a  distinct  personality  of  the  writer’s 
hand. 

These  facts  constitute  the  fundamental  basis  of  scientific 
examinations  and  comparisons  of  forged  or  disguised  hand¬ 
writing,  and  they  may  be  formulated  into  three  axioms. 

First — No  writer  can  know  all  the  innumerable  charac¬ 
teristics  of  his  own  handwriting. 

Second — No  one  can  observe  and  note  all  the  habitual 
characteristics  in  the  writing  of  another. 

Third — Were  one  conscious  of  all  his  own  personalities 
and  able  to  perceive  all  those  of  another  writer,  the  hand 
at  the  mere  command  of  the  will  cannot  be  so  controlled  as 
to  entirely  avoid  the  one  and  reproduce  perfectly  all  the 
others.  Force  of  habit  will  constantly  inject  the  person¬ 
ality  of  the  writer,  while  the  unnoted  personality  of  the 
imitated  writing  will  be  constantly  omitted. 

When  writing  is  in  dispute  and  is  submitted  to  an 
expert,  he  enters  upon  an  exhaustive  study  and  analysis  to 
discover  wherein  these  unconscious  habits  are  absent  and 
are  substituted  by  others.  In  other  words,  he  seeks  to 
strip  from  the  writing  its  garb  of  disguise  as  would  a 
detective  the  robes  of  disguise  from  a  person.  The 
degree  of  certainty  of  an  expert’s  conclusion  must,  of 
course,  be  proportionate  with  his  skill  to  detect,  and  the 
skill  of  the  perpetrator  to  conceal  his  identity ;  but,  as  a 
rule,  conclusions  thus  reached  by  a  really  skilled  and  honest 
expert  are  seldom  wrong,  and  they  constitute  the  strongest 
kind  of  circumstantial  evidence. 

Obviously  many  causes  conspire  to  stamp  upon  the 


UNTRAINED  HAND  VERSUS  TRAINED  MIND. 


23 


writing  of  different  persons  their  own  personality.  One 
having  short,  thick  fingers,  the  muscles  of  which,  with 
those  of  the  hand  and  arm,  are  hardened  and  stiffened  by 
severe  labor  and  are  little  exercised  in  writing,  cannot  pos¬ 
sibly  write  like  one  having  long,  flexible  fingers  constantly 
exercised  in  writing. 

Again,  writing  with  the  finger  movement  cannot  produce 
the  flowing,  easy,  and  graceful  style  of  one  who  calls  the 
muscles  of  the  wrist  or  fore-arm  into  use.  The  personal 
qualities,  taste,  judgment,  disposition,  and  environment  of 
the  writer  are  also  powerful  elements  in  shaping  his  style. 
Much  bad  writing  results  from  the  effort  of  an  untrained 
hand,  striving  to  perform  the  impossible  task  of  recording 
the  thought  of  the  highest-trained  minds.  A  hand  capable 
of  writing  well  thirty  words  per  minute  endeavors  to 
record  the  thoughts  of  a  mind  that  can  furnish  two  hun¬ 
dred  words  in  the  same  time,  and  it  often  descends  to  pot¬ 
hooks  and  slurs,  legible  only  from  the  context. 


24 


NICE  CHARACTERISTIC  DISTINCTIONS. 


The  preceding  cut  is  presented  as  a  specimen  of  such 
writing,  which  is  from  a  portion  of  a  letter  received  at  the 
office  of  the  writer  in  ordinary  correspondence. 

Probably  no  editorial  writing  has  been  more  frequently 
the  subject  of  comment  than  that  of  Horace  Greeley,  a 
specimen  of  which,  here  presented,  happily  illustrates  our 
point ;  also,  two  other  specimens,  illustrative  of  highly  per¬ 
sonal  writing,  by  Peter  Cooper,  the  well-known  inventor 
and  philanthropist  of  New  York,  and  William  Cullen  Bry¬ 
ant,  one  of  America’s  greatest  poets. 

Of  course,  the  more  radical  and  conspicuous  peculiar¬ 
ities  become,  the  more  obvious  will  be  the  individuality 
and  identity  of  the  writing.  It  will  sometimes  happen 
that  adults  having  no  very  determined  or  dominant  charac¬ 
teristics,  and  who  have  written  but  little,  and  that  under 
circumstances  not  sharply  controlling  their  actions,  will 
retain  much  of  the  style  they  acquired  at  school.  In  such 
cases  there  will  be  many  coincident  types  of  letters,  and 
perhaps  of  forms  as  between  their  writing  and  that  of 
others  having  learned  from  practicing  after  the  same  copies 
and  under  the  same  instruction,  so  much  so  that  a  casual 
observer  may  be  betrayed  into  a  mistaken  identity  of  writ¬ 
ing,  just  as  persons  who  bear  a  strong  resemblance  are 
often  mistaken  for  each  other. 

There  may  be  a  superficial  likeness,  even  a  striking  one, 
in  writing  as  in  persons,  yet  there  can  be  no  positive  iden¬ 
tity.  What,  in  a  general  way,  may  appear  to  the  casual 
observer  to  be  the  same,  under  the  eye  of  those  who  are 
familiar  from  intimate  acquaintance,  or  of  an  expert  who  is 
acute  in  discovering  and  judging  of  characteristic  differ¬ 
ences,  there  will  be  manifest  points  of  difference  so  radical 
as  to  make  the  lack  of  identity  positive  and  unmistakable. 
As  an  instance,  it  was  alleged  that  two  writings  were  by  the 
same  person,  because  in  each  there  were  several  coincident 
types  of  letters.  For  example,  the  “e”  was  made  in  the 
form  of*  the  Greek  letter  “epsilon,”  but  upon  a  critical 


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GENERAL  VERSUS  CHARACTERISTIC  DISTINCTIONS. 


examination  it  was  found  that  in  the  one  instance  the  letter 
was  made  so  that  its  upper  portion  was  one-third  the  length 
of  the  letter,  and  was  nearly  a  horizontal  oval,  while  the 
point  connecting  the  two  parts  pointed  upwards  at  an  angle 
of  forty-five  degrees,  thus:  that  in  the  other  writing  it 

was  so  divided  that  the  upper  portion  was  nearly  two-thirds 
the  length  of  the  letter,  which  began  with  a  hook,  and 
the  connecting  point  projected  downward,  thus :  (f ;  so  that 
while  alike  in  type,  they  were,  characteristically,  very 
unlike. 

Among  all  the  fourteen  hundred  millions  of  people  who 
inhabit  the  earth  no  two  are  identically  the  same.  No  more 
are  any  two  handwritings.  Although  resemblances  may  be 
striking,  a  perfect  likeness  of  any  two  things  does  not 
exist.  “  Alike  as  two  peas  ”  is  a  trite  saying;  yet  when 
two  peas  are  scrutinized  under  the  lens  of  a  microscope 
differences  of  detail  multiply  well-nigh  to  the  infinite. 

But  it  is  urged  against  the  identity  of  writing  that  the 
same  person  never  writes  twice  exactly  alike.  This  is  true 
in  the  sense  that  a  person’s  handwriting  varies  as  to  its 
precise  detail,  but  in  its  general  habitual  characteristics  it  is 
the  same,  as  several  peas  may  vary  in  size,  color,  smooth¬ 
ness  and  outline,  yet  inevitably  and  unmistakably  retain 
every  characteristic  that  identifies  them  as  peas  and  distin¬ 
guishes  them  from  pebbles  or  any  other  object  of  similar 
size  and  form. 

“Like,  but  oh!  how  different!” 

A  fine  or  stub  pen,  haste  or  deliberation,  good  or  bad 
health,  sitting  or  standing,  drunk  or  sober,  may  radically 
change  the  appearance  and  quality  of  writing,  as  may  the 
condition  of  health  or  age  change  or  impair  the  personal 
appearance  of  the  writer ;  but  it  might  as  well  be  claimed 
that  these  abnormal  circumstances  make  a  new  person  as 
that  they  make  a  new  handwriting.  The  pen  in  a  palsied, 
drunken,  or  incensed  hand  may  be  erratic  in  its  motion,  but 
no  more  so  than  would  be  the  motions  of  the  feet  and  body 


PERSONALITY  NEITHER  TAUGHT  NOR  HINDERED.  29 

from  a  corresponding  cause.  Each  inevitably  strives  to 
perform  its  normal  and  habitual  functions,  and  approximates 
doing  so  exactly  according  to  the  degree  of  the  impedi¬ 
ment. 

It  is  sometimes  urged  by  teachers  and  the  press,  as  an 
objection  to  the  use  of  engraved  copy-books  in  our  public 
schools,  that  from  the  uniform  and  impersonal  character  of 
the  copies  there  is  danger  that  pupils  will  acquire  a  style  of 
writing  so  nearly  alike  as  to  eliminate  the  ordinary  person¬ 
ality  by  which  the  writing  of  one  person  is  distinguished 
from  that  of  another ;  and  under  such  apprehension  some 
teachers  have  even  sought  to  teach  what  they  denominated 
“personal  writing.”  True  personality  in  writing  can 
neither  be  taught  nor  materially  hindered  by  style  of  copy 
or  effort  of  the  teacher.  If  a  teacher  reflect  but  for  a 
moment  he  must  see  that  any  peculiarity  present  in  a  copy 
could  be  only  a  copied  form  in  the  writing  of  the  imitator. 
As  we  have  shown,  personality  is  not  in  the  writing  of  the 
learner,  more  than  is  the  matured  face  and  form  of  the 
adult  in  that  of  the  child.  Each  comes  by  evolution 
through  time  and  circumstances,  and  teachers  and  others 
who  are  apprehensive  lest  all  or  many  people  should  come 
to  write  alike,  from  any  cause,  might  be  equally  apprehen¬ 
sive  lest  the  same  childish  forms  and  features  which  they 
see  in  the  schoolroom  should  remain  unchanged  through 
advancing  years.  The  teacher  need  be  concerned  only  in 
assisting  the  learner  to  acquire  all  the  essentials  of  a  good 
handwriting — mamely,  good,  legible  forms,  together  with 
ease  and  grace  of  execution. 

Nor  is  the  distinguishing  personality  of  writing  limited 
to  individuals.  The  writing  of  the  world  is  marked  and 
varied  in  its  idiosyncrasies  as  are  the  physiognomies  and 
other  peculiar  race  characteristics. 

Some  years  since  I  had  occasion  to  prepare  an  elaborate 
testimonial  to  John  W.  Mackey  from  the  employees  of  the 
Commercial  Cable  Company,  and,  when  completed,  pages 


30 


NATIONALITY  IN  HANDWRITING. 


were  sent  to  the  leading  offices,  for  the  signatures  of  the 
employees,  three  of  which  pages  we  have  reproduced  and 
here  present  as  typical  of  the  writing  of  three  nationalities  — 
English,  American,  and  French.  They  may  not  be  fairly 
representative,  as  it  is  quite  probable  that  there  is  some 
intermingling  of  nationalities  on  these  pages. 


■7  &  ' 


J  . 


5 ryicur 


FAMILY  RESEMBLANCE  IN  WRITING. 


33 


The  extensive  and  close  observer  distinguishes  between 
nationalities  by  their  writing  as  he  does  by  speech,  physi¬ 
ognomy,  or  any  other  race  peculiarity.  Even  when  one 
has  learned  to  write  another  than  his  native  language,  the 
race-distinction  remains  to  a  perceptible  degree.  The 
writing  of  a  German,  Frenchman,  or  other  foreigner  who 
has  learned  to  speak  and  write  the  English  language  will 
usually  retain  an  idiocratic  style  as  perceptible  to  the  expert 
as  the  accent  in  his  speech ;  and  the  one  can  be  overcome 
or  avoided  no  more  easily  than  the  other. 

Sometimes,  too,  there  is  a  strong  resemblance  between  the 
writing  as  there  is  between  the  persons  and  characteristics 
of  different  members  of  the  same  family.  This  resemblance 
very  naturally  results  from  coincident  instructions,  example, 
and  hereditary  family  traits.  These  family  resemblances 
are  occasionally  so  great  as  to  lead  to  mistaken  identity  of 
both  person  and  writing,  by  persons  of  limited  acquaint¬ 
ance,  but  not  of  either  by  intimate  relatives  or  associates. 
In  neither  case  can  we  conceive  a  complete  and  perfect 
identity  to  be  possible. 

The  skilled  and  observing  accountant  or  correspondent 
will  recognize  the  various  handwritings  of  all  associated  in 
his  house,  as  well  as  of  its  frequent  correspondents,  as 
readily  and  unerringly  as  he  does  their  persons ;  nor  can 
the  identity  of  their  handwriting  be  more  effectively  con¬ 
cealed  by  disguise  than  can  the  persons  of  the  writers. 

It  is  also  an  observable  fact  that  original  and  highly 
eccentric  persons  usually  develop  an  equally  original  and 
eccentric  handwriting.  By  eccentric  writing  we  do  not 
mean  the  well-nigh  unintelligible  hieroglyphics  of  such 
newspaper  writers  as  Greeley  and  others,  whose  essentially 
bad  writing  has  resulted  more  from  the  attempt  to  force  an 
unskilled  hand  to  perform  the  utterly  impossible  task  of 
keeping  pace  with  their  rushing  torrent  of  thoughts  than 
from  any  real  eccentricity  of  character.  We  refer  to  those 
whimsical,  nondescript  styles  in  which  the  writers  utterly 


34  ECCENTRIC  PERSONS  HAVE  ECCENTRIC  WRITING. 


ignore  all  system  or  example,  and  seem  to  defy  alike  all 
rules  of  art  and  nature  by  deliberately  introducing  forms 
and  combinations  which  may  be  anything  or  nothing  accord¬ 
ing  to  their  position  and  the  context,  and  which  constitute 
as  a  whole  a  “  hand  ”  as  grotesque  and  inimitable  as  the 
character  of  its  author,  and  one  which  seems  to  say  to  the 
beholder,  “This  is  my  style,” — and  very  properly,  for 
certainly  it  will  enter  into  the  brain  of  no  other  person  to 
conceive  of  anything  like  it.  We  here  present  a  few 
specimens  of  such  writing,  together  with  facsimile  auto¬ 
graphs  of  those  persons  who  have  been  publicly  known, 
which  will  serve  as  illustrative  examples :  — 


jrf-TJig 


V)iy-  4**  11  i 


HIGHLY  PERSONAL  WRITING. 


35 


J yuvJiaMt  tMjsuw,"  Sous  a  "kfiXCy 
faoM&A/naM.  1 1  U>  ~6Ckt.  a.  jsxu  :  lwf> 
l\&cu£  jzn&\ren£b  fusn,  j^-crm.  gorM^ 
firo  ^OA *". 


These  autographs  are  certainly  sui  generis ,  and  in  their 
entire  originality  and  defiance  of  prescribed  rules  of  chi- 
rography  are  typical  of  their  respective  authors,  who,  in 
their  careers,  have  been  equally  original  and  irrespective  of 
the  beaten  ways  of  their  grandfathers. 

As  another  example  of  the  eccentric  autograph  —  cer¬ 
tainly  its  writer  has  departed  widely  from  the  ways  of  her 
grandmother  —  we  present  the  following:  — 


36 


WRITING  NOT  MARKEDLY  PERSONAL. 


“  It  is,”  in  the  words  of  another  writer,  “  a  fine  combi¬ 
nation  ol  masculine  vigor  and  feminine  caprice.”  Authors 
ot  such  writing  and  autographs  as  above  need  have  no  fear 
of  a  mistaken  identity,  or  of  any  considerable  number  of 
accidental  coincidences  between  their  own  and  any  other 
“  sign  manual.” 

Below  are  specimens  of  writing  and  autographs  con¬ 
structed  more  in  accordance  with  the  prevailing  standards 
of  form,  and  not  characterized  by  conspicuous  personal¬ 
ities  :  — 


Such  writing  will  occur  in  cases  where  persons  of  nearly 
equal  skill  have  learned  to  write  by  practicing  from  the 
same  copies,  and  whose  hands  have  not  subsequently 
changed  by  practice  under  widely  different  circumstances, 
or  been  dominated  by  strong  peculiar  personal  traits.  In 
such  writing  there  will  be  many  accidental  coincidences  of 
form  and  combination  between  that  of  different  writers, 
and  mistaken  identity  is  liable  except  by  those  to  whom 
the  handwriting  is  thoroughly  familiar,  or  from  a  somewhat 
expert  examination. 

It  is  the  peculiar  eccentricities  of  habit  in  writing,  as  it 
is  in  the  figure,  dress,  etc.,  in  persons,  which  readily  and 
certainly  determine  their  identity. 

Persons  of  the  same  color,  of  medium  stature,  regular 
features,  clothed  in  the  prevailing  fashion,  present  much 
the  same  appearance  to  the  eye  of  a  stranger,  and  on  a 
slight  acquaintance  may  easily  be  mistaken  one  for  another. 
But  persons  highly  exceptional  in  any  of  these  respects 
will  be  recognized  at  sight.  There  can  be  no  mistaking  a 
black  for  a  white  man,  a  giant  for  a  dwarf,  or  a  cripple  on 
crutches  for  a  man  on  sound  leg^s.  Persons  are  never  so 


DISGUISED  HANDWRITING  RETAINS  ITS  IDENTITY.  T>7 

identical  in  form,  features,  dress,  habit,  etc.,  as  to  be  mis¬ 
taken  by  intimate  acquaintances,  and  usually  where  a 
strong  personal  resemblance  is  apparent  to  strangers,  it 
ceases  to  be  so  upon  a  greater  familiarity.  So,  how¬ 
ever  close  the  resemblance  between  the  writing  of  dif¬ 
ferent  persons  may  appear  to  the  unfamiliar  observer,  the 
identity  of  each  will  not  only  be  apparent  at  once  to  its 
author  and  others  to  whom  it  is  familiar,  but  they  will 
usually  fail  even  to  note  a  resemblance. 

Though  writing  be  changed  in  its  general  appearance,  as 
it  easily  may  be  by  altering  its  slope  or  size,  or  by  using  a 
widely  different  pen,  yet  the  unconscious  habit  of  the 
writer  will  remain  and  be  perceptible  in  all  the  details  of 
the  writing ;  and  such  an  effort  to  disguise  one’s  writing 
could  be  scarcely  more  successful  than  would  be  an  effort 
to  disguise  the  person  by  a  change  of  dress.  In  either 
case  a  close  inspection  reveals  the  true  identity. 

Although  it  be  a  fact  that  writing  ultimately  becomes  the 
automatic  production  of  the  hand,  it  is  equally  a  fact  that 
it  does  so  as  the  pupil  and  agent  of  the  mind ;  and  in  the 
molding  process  the  peculiar  qualities  of  its  tutor  and 
master  enter  unconsciously  into  its  composition,  and  it 
becomes,  as  it  were,  a  mirror  of  its  creator  —  the  mind. 

The  truth  of  this  assertion  we  will  endeavor  to  illustrate 
by  presenting  facsimile  autographs  of  a  few  persons  whose 
mental  characteristics  are  a  matter  of  historical  record,  and 
will  or  may  be  known  to  all  our  readers.  It  is  probable 
that  the  writing  of  no  two  Americans  has  more  frequently 
been  the  subject  of  comment  than  that  of  Rufus  Choate 
and  John  Hancock,  whose  portraits  and  autographs  we 
present  on  the  next  page. 

The  contrasts  are  equally  striking,  as  between  the  per¬ 
sonal  characteristics,  physiognomies,  or  chirography  of  these 
gentlemen,  Mr.  Choate  enjoying  the  reputation  of  being 
among  the  worst,  as  Hancock  was  among  the  best,  writers 
of  their  times. 


38  FITNESS  OF  AUTOGRAPH  AND  PHYSIOGNOMY. 


The  hard,  wiry,  nervous,  and  intensely  marked  features 
of  Choate,  bespeak  the  brilliant  though  eccentric  orator, 
jurist,  and  statesman,  and  are  in  full  accord  with  his  auto¬ 
graph. 

The  portrait  of  Hancock,  in  its  bold,  open,  and  frank 
expression,  is  typical  of  what  the  biographer  describes  as 
“  a  man  of  strong  common  sense  and  great  decision  of 
character,  polished  manners,  easy  address,  affable,  liberal, 
and  charitable.”  Could  portrait,  character,  and  autograph 
be  in  better  accord  ? 

As  the  companion  autograph  of  Hancock’s,  we  present 
that  of  John  Adams  — 


PAINSTAKING  AUTOGRAPHS. 


39 


who  was  also  a  compatriot  of  the  stirring  times  of  the 
Revolution,  and  a  colleague  in  the  Colonial  Congress.  Both 
were  among  the  most  earnest,  bold,  and  fearless  advocates 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  John  Adams,  in  one 
of  his  fiery  speeches  in  its  favor,  closed  by  fairly  shouting 
“Independence  forever!”  and  Hancock,  after  subscribing 
his  autograph  to  the  Declaration,  which  act  might  have 
become  his  death-warrant,  remarked,  “  The  British  Min¬ 
istry  will  not  need  their  specs  to  see  that.”  The  bold, 
strong,  determined  character  of  these  men  stands  out  in 
their  autographs. 

In  marked  contrast  to  these,  are  the  autographs  of  two 
of  our  great  merchants  and  financiers  :  — 


Here  we  have  men  of  affairs  who  have  a  care  for  details 
which  enter  as  minutely  and  fully  into  their  autographs  as 
into  their  business.  Between  these  autographs  and  the  fol¬ 
lowing  are  contrasts  as  striking  as  were  the  character  and 
missions  in  their  authors. 

The  latter  are  of  a  class  of  what  might  be  termed  par¬ 
liamentary  autographs.  Their  authors  indulge  in  none  of 
the  redundances  of  fantastic  quirks  and  eccentricities  so 
common  to  most  classes  of  writers,  the  autographs  seeming 
to  possess  a  conscious  dignity,  which,  like  the  greatness  of 
their  authors,  is  most  complete  without  decoration. 


40 


PARLIAMENTARY  AUTOGRAPHS. 


The  autograph  of  Clay,  in  its  concise,  frank,  open,  and 
almost  laconic  style,  most  faithfully  reflects  the  character  of 
the  great  statesman,  whose  life  was  without  equivocation, 
disguise,  or  reproach,  and  concerning  whose  opinions  and 
purposes  his  countrymen  were  never  in  doubt. 


The  autograph  of  his  great  contemporary,  Webster,  too, 
in  its  simplicity  and  dignity  of  style,  is  appropriate  to  the 
terse,  vigorous,  and  unaffected  style  of  America’s  greatest 
political  orator  and  statesman. 


The  autograph  of  Lincoln  is  clear,  bold,  and  utterly  with¬ 
out  affectation ;  while  its  quaint,  honest  dignity  renders  it 
thoroughly  appropriate  as  the  “  sign  manual  ”  of  “  Honest 
Abe.”  In  a  contrast  as  marked  as  were  the  peculiar  char¬ 
acteristics  and  attainments  of  the  two  men  stands  the  deli¬ 
cately  molded  autograph  of  his  great  “  War  Premier  ” 
Seward.  In  its  delicate  construction  of  fine  hair-lines, 
clear-cut  shades,  and  almost  microscopical  proportions,  is 
indicated  that  rare  quality  of  mind  which  crystallized 
thought  into  felicitous  phrases,  and  stamped  him  as  the 
ablest  statesman  and  diplomatist  of  his  time. 


Probably  no  two  American  statesmen  more  resembled 
each  other  in  their  style  of  thought  and  expression  than 
Seward  and  Alexander  Hamilton,  the  latter  the  accomplished 


A  CONTRAST  OF  AUTOGRAPHS. 


41 


aide-de-camp  of  General  Washington,  and  subsequently 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  under  Washington’s  administra¬ 
tion.  In  many  respects  the  autographs  of  Seward  and 
Hamilton  also  resemble  each  other. 


The  autograph  of  Garfield  is  easy,  flowing,  and  graceful, 
without  redundancy  or  pretension.  Nothing  could  be  more 
in  keeping  with  the  scholarly  attainments,  graceful  oratory, 
and  unpretentious  merit  of  its  author. 


The  autograph  of  General  Grant  is  plain  and  simple  in 
its  construction,  not  an  unnecessary  movement  or  mark  in 
it  —  a  signature  as  bare  of  superfluity  and  ostentation  as 
was  the  silent  soldier  and  hero  of  Appomattox. 

In  the  autograph  of  R.  E.  Lee  we  have  the  same  terse, 
brief  manner  of  construction  as  in  Grant’s.  It  is  more 
antiquated  and  formal  in  its  style,  more  stiff  and  what 
might  be  called  aristocratic.  Its  firm  upright  strokes,  with 
angular  horizontal  terminal  lines,  indicate  a  determined, 
positive  character. 

In  somewhat  marked  contrast  with  the  two  last-men¬ 
tioned  autographs  is  that  of  General  Beauregard,  in  that  he 
indulges  in  a  rather  elaborate  flourish,  which  is  a  national 
characteristic. 


42 


SEX  IN  HANDWRITING. 


Sex  in  Handwriting. —  It  would  seem  to  be  from  a  dif¬ 
ference,  original  and  instinctive,  that  a  boy  delights  in  his 
hobby-horse  and  the  girl  in  her  doll ;  that  the  greater  and 
more  heroic  things  of  life  engage  the  attention  of  men, 
while  women  are  led  by  their  nature  and  instinct  into 
the  more  circumscribed  realm  of  social  and  domestic  life. 
She  ornaments  her  home  and  decorates  her  person  quite 
beyond  the  inclination  of  man.  She  is  punctilious  as  to  the 
niceties  and  details  of  life ;  he  is  impatient  of  them.  So 
in  writing,  she  can  omit  no  detail  that  catches  her  fancy 
more  than  she  could  omit  to  adorn  her  person  with  some 
dainty  ribbon.  It  is  thus  that  a  woman  betrays  her  sex  in 
the  fastidious  detail  of  her  writing. 

It  will  occasionally  happen  that  some  masculine  woman 
will  so  closely  approximate  the  plainness  of  male  hand¬ 
writing  as  to  challenge  a  sex  identity,  just  as  an  occasional 
male  “  Miss  Nancy  ”  will  manifest,  in  his  writing,  a  feminine 
caprice  to  a  degree  that  will  destroy  any  sex  distinction. 

It  is  therefore  through  the  almost  inevitable  caprice 
and  fancy  touches  of  writing  that  an  expert  distinguishes 
between  the  writing  of  the  sexes. 

o 


CHAPTER  II. 


MOVEMENTS  IN  WRITING  DEFINED  AND  ILLUSTRATED - STYLES  OF 

WRITING  :  ANGULAR,  SEMI-ANGULAR,  ROUND-SHADED,  UPRIGHT, 
AND  BACK-HAND. 

Four  movements  are  more  or  less  employed  in  writing,  — 
the  finger,  the  combined  finger  and  wrist,  the  combined 
finger  and  fore-arm,  and  sometimes  a  whole-arm  move¬ 
ment  is  united  with  one  or  more  of  the  others.  With  the 
finger  movement  the  hand  and  arm  rests  upon  the  table,  the 
motions  of  the  writing  being  performed  chiefly  by  the  fingers. 
Finger-movement  writing  is  usually  shaded,  slow,  formal, 
and  without  dash  or  flourish,  and  is  the  most  susceptible  of 
forgery  or  imitation. 

In  combined  finger-  and  wrist-movement  writing,  the 
action  of  the  muscles  of  the  wrist  chiefly  supply  the  motion, 
and  the  writing  is  characterized  by  a  considerably  enlarged 
scope.  It  is  less  formal,  and  is  written  with  facility  and 
more  or  less  dash. 

The  combined  finger  and  fore-arm  movement  is  the  most 
easy,  rapid,  and  tireless  of  the  movements,  the  motion 
coming  chiefly  from  the  action  of  the  muscles  of  the  fore¬ 
arm.  On  this  movement  writing  is  usually  less  formal  and 
accurate  than  writing  on  either  the  finger  or  wrist  move¬ 
ments,  and  requires  very  much  more  discipline  to  acquire  or 
retain  than  do  those  movements. 

The  whole-arm  movement  is  employed  in  blackboard  and 
other  writing  upon  a  very  large  scale.  Many  writers  who 
make  use  of  large,  flourishy  capital  letters  in  their  auto¬ 
graphs,  or  in  displayed  headings  upon  books  or  hotel 


44 


MOVEMENTS  IN  WRITING. 


registers,  etc.,  make  use  of  this  movement.  It  is  also  the 
chief  movement  in  “  flourishing,”  which  in  earlier  times  cut 
an  important  figure  in  the  chirographer’s  art. 

The  greater  the  freedom  of  movement  in  writing,  the 
more  difficult  it  is  to  forge  or  simulate.  Writing  and  signa¬ 
tures  which  are  slowly  and  laboriously  written  on  a  finger 
movement  can  be  most  easily  and  successfully  imitated. 

It  is  exceedingly  difficult  for  a  person  habitually  writing 
by  one  movement  to  successfully  imitate  writing  executed 
by  another  movement.  One  habituated  to  the  finger  move¬ 
ment  cannot  successfully  forge  the  writing  of  a  fore-arm 
writer.  The  fore-arm  writer  will  be  much  more  successful 
in  imitating  writing  written  with  the  finger  movement.  It 
is  possible  for  a  more  skillful  writer  to  descend  to  the  low 
art  of  an  unskilled  writer,  but  is  far  less  probable  that  the 
unskilled  hand  should  ascend  to  a  much  higher  scale  of  art 
than  it  has  ever  known  or  practiced. 


MOVEMENTS. 


STYLES  OF  WRITING. 

ANGULAR  WRITING. 

(Combined  fore-arm  and  finger  movement,  fore-arm  predominating.) 


SEMI-ANGULAR  WRITING. 

(Combined  fore-ar?n  and  finger  movement.) 


Qltrf# 


/s/ftr 


ROUND  HAND,  SHADED. 

( Finger  movement.) 


r/ i^ie/jaJs 


UPRIGHT  WRITING. 

(Fore-arm  and  finger  movement ,  finger  predominating.) 

cXXxxxX  'Xjixx^cJnjirh  Xy-Q^  p,Orcr Y" 

yjcXrxxy  rurf  jCaxxiJ-'o-  n_^exxW^ 

CO  -^jj-OoCC  dUcXAjOO^Z)  LAFtXJx^  CAT  ^-oc-cJ-  tSo 


■Lnr 


ooLc_xx^> . 


BACK-SLANT  WRITING. 

(Fore-cirm  and  finger  movement.) 


\ 


CHAPTER  III. 


WRITING  UNDER  ABNORMAL  CIRCUMSTANCES —  WITH  THE  LEFT 
HAND  ■ —  BY  PERSONS  INTOXICATED,  NERVOUS,  ASSISTED,  OR 
HYPNOTIZED  —  WITH  PENCIL  OR  STYLOGRAPHIC  PEN. 

The  question  is  often  raised  as  to  the  effect  of  any 
abnormal  condition  of  a  person  upon  his  writing ;  for 
instance,  writing  with  an  untrained  left  hand,  or  while 
intoxicated,  or  in  a  hypnotic  state,  or  by  a  paralytic  or  one 
infirm  from  old  age,  disease,  or  impaired  mental  or  physical 
capacity  from  any  cause. 

While  the  writer  does  not  presume  to  speak  as  a  specialist 
in  all  of  the  several  departments  in  which  these  various 
peculiarities  would  be  classed,  he  has  observed  the  peculiar 
phenomena  of  writing  executed  under  all  these  conditions, 
with  the  general  result  that  under  them  all  the  hand, 
which  from  lifelong  practice  has  come  to  write,  as  it  were, 
automatically,  through  the  sheer  force  of  habit,  continues, 
however  changed  the  circumstances,  to  be  dominated  by 
the  same  old  habits,  and  strives  to  write  as  before  ;  and  its 
efforts  will  be  modified  to  the  degree,  and  in  a  manner, 
peculiar  to  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  difficulty  under 
which  it  writes. 

That  resulting  from  writing  with  the  left  hand  is  excep¬ 
tional  from  the  fact  that  in  the  left  hand  a  new  and 
untrained  agent  is  introduced  to  do  the  work  of  the  old  and 
habituated  one ;  a  joint  mental  and  physical  effort  is  there¬ 
fore  required  to  contend  with  the  difficulty.  The  mind  pre¬ 
sents  the  old  idealized  model  of  writing,  and  engages  its 
will  and  attention  in  the  effort  to  instruct  and  impel  its 


48 


WRITING  WITH  THE  LEFT  HAND. 


new  agent  to  make  the  nearest  possible  approach  to  the 
habitual  work  of  its  former  one ;  the  new  agent,  the  left 
hand,  aspiring  to  the  same  model  under  the  same  tutelage, 
continues  its  striving  to  accomplish  the  same  result,  which 
it  will  more  and  more  approximate  as  it  gains  control  of 
the  pen  and  consequent  facility  in  its  movements ;  and  in 
all  its  stages,  from  its  first  awkward  effort  to  ultimate  skill 
and  ease,  there  will  be  the  old  characteristic  writing,  the 
same  as  “Yankee  Doodle”  is  “Yankee  Doodle”  whether 
performed  by  the  greatest  master  or  tortured  by  the  merest 
tyro.  Even  were  one  to  lose  both  hands,  and  write,  hold¬ 
ing  his  pen  in  his  teeth  or  between  his  toes,  the  writing 
would  have  a  distorted  resemblance  to  that  written  formerly 
with  the  hand. 

The  writer  has  known  several  instances  where  persons 
accustomed  to  write  with  their  right  hand  have,  from  some 
cause,  substituted  the  left  hand.  In  all  cases  where  a  simi¬ 
lar  slant  has  been  maintained,  the  writing  of  the  left  hand, 
as  it  came  to  be  written  with  a  facility  approximating  that 
of  the  right,  has  assumed  a  correspondingly  close  resem¬ 
blance.  It  is  said  that,  late  in  life,  Thomas  Jefferson  lost 
the  use  of  his  right  hand  to  such  a  degree  as  to  cause  him 
to  substitute  his  left  hand  for  writing,  and  that,  after  a  short 
time,  writing  with  his  left  hand  was  scarcely  distinguishable 
from  that  formerly  written  with  his  right. 

In  the  following  cut  are  presented  specimens  written 
with  the  right  and  left  hands  by  a  young  man  who  was  to 
a  considerable  extent  ambidexterous.  Although  the  right 
hand  was  habitually  used  for  writing  and  most  other 
purposes,  yet  the  left  hand  was  used  with  considerable 
facility,  as  is  manifest  in  the  specimen  here  presented  for 
comparison. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  types  of  letters  throughout 
both  writings  are  the  same,  and  that  there  is  an  evident 
effort  to  construct  and  relate  the  letters  in  the  same  manner  ; 
this  is  specially  noticeable  in  the  autograph. 


RIGHT  HAND 


50  one’s  writing  characteristically  the  same. 


Below  we  present  specimens  of  writing  by  General 
W.  H.  L.  Barnes,  a  leader  of  the  bar  of  San  B'rancisco,  Cal. 
Each  of  the  specimens  was  written  with  an  easy  and  rapid 
movement,  and  without  hesitation,  and  is,  therefore,  an 
excellent  vindication  of  the  theory  that  however  one  writes, 
the  prominent  characteristics  of  his  hand  remain.  The 
last  specimen,  if  placed  before  a  looking-glass,  will  present 
all  the  characteristics  of  the  other  two. 


In  the  following  specimen,  the  three  words  to  the  left  were 
written  with  the  left  hand  ;  their  duplicates  at  the  right 
were  written  with  the  right  hand.  The  last  two  were 

o 


WRITING  UNDER  INTOXICATION. 


51 


written  simultaneously  with  both  hands  by  Mr.  C.  E. 
Cockey,  at  the  head  of  the  supply  department  of  the 
Western-Union  Telegraph  Company,  New  York. 


Intoxication  manifests  itself  in  loose,  vacillating  lines  that 
swing  and  stagger  around  the  characteristic  forms  of  the 
writer’s  normal  writing,  much  as  do  his  legs  and  body  along 
the  way,  in  locomotion.  Letters  and  words  tend  to  begin 
and  end  in  the  same  manner  as  in  normal  writing ;  habitual 
spacings  of  words  and  letters  are  distorted ;  shades  tend  to 
be  in  their  habitual  places,  though  more  or  less  vacillating 
as  to  place  and  degree.  The  habitual  mechanical  arrange¬ 
ment  is  closely  normal. 


Writing  Impaired  by  Age  or  Infirmity. — A  weak  and 
infirm  hand  moves  with  a  less  erratic  motion  than  under 
intoxication,  but  with  a  waving  motion,  and  the  words  are 
more  or  less  broken  into  letters  and  syllables. 

In  palsied  writing  the  lines  are  more  or  less  zigzag,  tend- 


52 


WRITING  UNDER  MUSCULAR  DIFFICULTY. 


ing  to  change  their  directions  on  angles  rather  than  curves ; 
shades  are  abnormal  and  the  writing  broken. 

In  the  following  cut  is  presented  an  excellent  specimen 
of  writing  under  extreme  muscular  difficulty.  It  will  be 
observed  that  all  the  changes  in  the  directions  of  the  lines 
are  on  angles,  in  place  of  curves,  or  swings,  as  in  the 
case  of  intoxication  or  weakness;  also,  that  evidently  the 
changes  are  at  equal  intervals  of  time,  varying  in  distance, 
simply  according  to  the  rapidity  of  the  motion  of  the  pen. 


«  '  p  «  (Tey .t  '  <v  a  /r oC  J%Z/<r47~ 

r/r?/  , sacks'  ~fZ/Vs~c  es,  acs  /ji  i/f r  ,  &&& 

1,  fPtcJ  ?  erf  /</(* ss  rc-  ojY  Yos*  st  A>t  ?</ZrrcJ.  y  aTrYtyr^ 

c  v  o'tZf  cc/tua  £  r  /*  t  •  yi  v  fjto/ecO  Y'y 


Hypnotized  Handwriting  Retains  All  Normal  Char¬ 
acteristics. — The  handwriting  of  persons  who  through 
hypnotism,  hysteria,  or  other  causes  are  made  to  assume 
double  consciousness  (i.  e.,  the  hypnotized  or  hysterical,  as 
well  as  the  normal  state),  has  been  discussed  more  or  less 
and  many  theories  advanced,  but  no  practical  demonstration 
has  hitherto  been  made,  or  at  least  made  public,  so  far  as 
we  can  learn. 

All  reason  would  indicate  that  the  characteristics  of  a 
person’s  normal  handwriting  would  remain  in  the  hypno¬ 
tized  writing,  because  the  hypnotic  subject  does  nothing 
while  under  the  influence  of  the  hypnotist  that  he  is  unable 
to  do  while  in  a  normal  state.  For  example,  the  subject 
could  not  execute  a  piece  of  artistic  penwork  in  the  hypno¬ 
tized  state,  if  he  were  a  poor  penman  in  his  normal  state. 

From  the  fact  that  hypnotic  subjects  (while  under  the 
spell)  can  be  and  have  been  made  to  sign  checks,  deeds, 
wills,  etc.,  disposing  of  property,  and  write  letters  that 
would  injure  them  in  various  ways,  courts  have  been  called 


HYPNOTIC  WRITING. 


53 


upon  occasionally  to  deal  with  such  cases.  Frequently  a 
hypnotic  subject  has  denied  his  genuine  signature  to  a 
paper,  because  he  had  no  remembrance  of  having  signed  it. 
Hence,  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  handwriting 
experts,  and  to  the  courts,  to  be  able  to  determine  whether 
the  writing  in  question  is  genuine  or  not.  The  question  of 
interest  to  all  students  of  handwriting  is  whether  the  char¬ 
acteristics  do  or  do  not  remain  the  same  in  handwriting 
produced  in  both  states. 

A  trial  and  experiment  was  made  upon  a  young  man, 
Mr.  Guy  Oppelt  Mason,  who  had  never  been  hypnotized. 
He  was  put  under  hypnotic  influence,  and  was  requested  to 
write  two  specimens  of  his  handwriting.  After  being 
awakened,  he  wrote  a  specimen  in  his  normal  state.  He 
said  that  he  had  not  written  the  hypnotized  specimens ;  at 
least,  he  did  not  remember  anything  about  it 


- .  *9*^. 


A  comparison  of  the  two  specimens  will  show  that  about 
the  only  difference  is  the  size.  Mr.  Mason,  while  in  the 
hypnotic  state,  had  been  told  that  he  had  the  toothache, 
etc.,  and  consequently  was  more  or  less  agitated  when  he 
sat  down  to  write.  While  there  are  a  few  slight  differences 
in  some  letters  and  in  the  pictorial  effect,  on  the  whole  the 
two  specimens  are  wonderfully  alike,  and  are  most  con- 


54 


WRITING  BY  A  GUIDED  HAND. 


vincing  that  hypnotism,  and  no  doubt  other  forms  of  double 
consciousness,  cannot  destroy  the  characteristics  in  hand¬ 
writing.  A  curious  feature  in  both  specimens  is  the  mispell- 
ing  of  the  word  specimen. 

Nothing  is  more  difficult  of  successful  simulation,  and 
nothing  is  more  difficult  to  destroy,  than  character  in  hand- 
writinpf.  That  writing  is  the  result  of  unconscious  reflex 
action,  nothing  more  positive  or  convincing  is  needed  than 
an  examination  of  the  two  specimens. 

Writing  by  a  Guided  Hand.  —  The  character  and 
quality  of  writing  in  case  of  a  controlled  or  assisted  hand 
must  depend  largely  upon  the  relative  force  exercised  by 
the  joint  hands.  The  difficulty  in  writing  arises  from  the 
antagonizing  motion  of  one  hand  upon  the  other,  which  is 
likely  to  produce  an  unintelligible  scrawl,  having  little  or 
none  of  the  habitual  characteristics  of  either  hand. 


DUNN,  HSGA/V  PASIVC. 


PENCIL  AND  STYLOGRAPHIC  WRITING. 


55 


Where  one  hand  is  more  or  less  passive,  the  controlling 
hand  doing  the  writing,  its  characteristics  may  be  more  or 
less  manifest  in  the  writing.  But  obviously  the  controlling 
hand  must  be  seriously  obstructed  in  its  motions  by  even  a 
passive  hand ;  and  since  the  controlling  hand  can  have  no 
proper  or  customary  rest,  the  motion  must  be  from  the 
shoulder  and  with  the  whole  arm.  The  writing  will  there¬ 
fore  be  upon  an  enlarged  scale,  loose,  sprawling,  and  can 
have  little,  if  any,  characteristic  resemblance  to  the  natural 
and  habitual  style  of  the  controlling  writer,  and  of  course 
none  of  the  person’s  whose  hand  is  passive. 

Pencil  and  Stylograph  versus  Pen-and-Ink  Writ¬ 
ing. — Pencil  or  stylographic  writing,  by  the  same  person, 
must  differ  materially  from  that  written  with  a  two-nibbed 
pen.  Shade,  which  is  usually  an  important  characteristic  in 
writing  with  a  pen,  is  either  absent  or  greatly  modified  in 
pencil  or  stylographic  writing.  A  shaded  line  in  writing,  in 
contradistinction  to  an  unshaded  line,  is  one  where  sufficient 
pressure  is  given  to  open  the  nibs  of  the  pen  on  a  down¬ 
ward  movement,  as  against  a  line  made  with  the  nibs  closed 
on  an  upward  movement. 

When  pencil  writing  is  in  question  the  task  of  the  expert 
is  greatly  enhanced,  from  the  fact  that  writing  by  the  same 
person  using  a  pencil  often  varies  greatly  from  that  with  a 
pen,  though  this  variation  is  chiefly  in  facility  and  shade.  Of 
course  it  is  the  same  habit  and  ideal  of  writing,  whether 
written  with  pen  or  pencil.  But  the  pencil,  from  its  round, 
smooth  point,  glides  easily,  regardless  of  its  position  as  to  the 
paper,  but,  having  a  single  point,  cannot  repeat  the  shades 
of  the  two  opening  nibs  of  a  pen.  The  expert  must  there¬ 
fore  rely  chiefly  upon  a  comparison  of  characteristic  forms 
where  pencil  writing  is  in  question. 

From  the  greater  smoothness  and  gliding  qualities  of  its 
point,  the  pencil  furnishes  a  better  support  to  the  hand ; 
therefore  any  characteristic  nervousness  or  muscular  difficul- 


56  WRITING  AFFECTED  BY  NERVOUS  DISEASES. 

ties  are  much  better  overcome.  Consequently  it  often 
happens  that  very  bad  writers  with  a  pen  are  passably  good 
writers  with  a  pencil. 

Writing  Affected  by  Nervous  Diseases. — Dr.  William 
Hammond,  in  his  celebrated  work  on  “Nervous  Diseases,” 
which  is  accepted  as  a  standard  of  authority  on  that  class  of 
diseases,  instances  several  cases  of  the  deterioration  and 
ultimate  degradation  of  the  writing  by  persons  in  neurotic 
states.  He  says  :  “In  nearly  all  diseases  of  the  spinal  cord 
and  brain,  the  writing  is  amongst  the  first  voluntary  move¬ 
ments  to  depart  from  the  normal  condition  of  performance. 
To  the  trained  eye  of  the  graphologists  this  fact  is  laden 
with  meaning ;  but  at  present  it  has  not  occupied  the 
attention  due  to  its  importance  of  the  medical  profession. 
There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  each  organic  disease  and 
the  cachexia  leading  to  it  is  discoverable  in  the  writing  of  all 
sick  persons  who  can  use  the  pen  ;  and  the  higher  the  grade 
of  the  intelligence,  the  more  radical  will  be  the  indications.” 
Not  only  is  the  loss  of  co-ordinate  nervous  muscular  power 
traceable,  as  in  the  case  given  by  Dr.  Hammond,  but  the 
advance  of  an  insidious  disease  must,  to  some  extent,  be  a 
factor  in  the  actual  character,  and  as  such  should  be  capable 
of  unerring  recognition. 

o  o 


CHAPTER  IV. 


SIGNATURES  OR  OTHER  WRITING  NEVER  WRITTEN  TWICE  ALIKE  — 
HOWLAND  WILL  CONTEST. 

It  is  a  fact  universally  recognized  by  experts  and  those 
well  informed  respecting  handwriting,  that  a  man  never 
writes  his  signature  twice  exactly  alike.  Approximations 
may  be  very  close,  but  never  microscopically  the  same. 
While  this  is  true  of  measurements  and  minutiae  of  detail, 
there  are  yet  ever-present,  coincident  characteristics  that 
positively  identify  one  genuine  signature  with  another. 
Letters  and  writing  no  more  change  characteristics  with 
their  measurements,  than  does  a  square,  a  circle,  or  a  tri¬ 
angle. 

Signatures  may  differ  widely  in  their  general  appearance, 
according  to  their  size,  purpose,  the  ink  or  pen  with  which 
they  are  written,  physical  or  mental  condition  of  the  writer, 
whether  written  with  haste  or  deliberation,  etc.  ;  but  none 
or  all  of  these  circumstances  can  create  a  new  handwriting 
any  more  than  a  change  of  garb  or  circumstances  can  make 
a  new  man.  It  is  the  same  character  of  writing  or  man 
masquerading  in  a  new  role.  And  what  is  true  of  a  signa¬ 
ture  is  also  largely  true  of  any  extended  writing.  One 
writing  naturally,  seldom  exactly  duplicates  a  word,  rarely  a 
phrase,  never  an  extended  period. 

One’s  signature  usually  differs  from  his  general  writing 
from  the  fact  that  there  is  more  thought  and  care  exercised 
in  the  choice  of  types  of  letters  and  so  combining  them  as 
to  give  the  greatest  facility  in  writing  it ;  and  frequently 
artistic  effect  is  considered,  and  from  the  more  frequent 


5§ 


THE  HOWLAND  WILL  CASE. 


repetition  of  an  autograph  it  is  written  more  automatically 
than  is  body  writing.  It  is  usually  more  or  less  mono- 
grammic  in  its  character,  and  comes  ultimately  to  be  more 
personified  and  to  stand  in  a  peculiar  manner  as  the  repre¬ 
sentation  of  its  author.  It  palpitates,  as  it  were,  with  his 
very  life  and  character, —  it  is  his  Alter  Ego. 

Writing  undergoes  a  perceptible  change  with  every 
altered  circumstance  of  the  writing.  It  is  rare  that  blank 
spaces  left  in  a  document  can  subsequently  be  so  filled,  by 
the  same  hand,  as  not  to  present  a  difference  noticeable  to 
an  expert  examiner.  Writing  at  the  beginning  and  close 
of  an  extended  letter  or  document  differs  in  the  decree  of 
its  facility.  The  accountant  or  clerk,  after  a  long  vacation, 
does  not  resume  his  writing  with  the  accustomed  facility  of 
hand. 

In  the  celebrated  Howland  Will  Case,  tried  some  years 
since  at  New  Bedford,  Mass.,  (4th  American  Law  Review, 
p.  460,)  because  three  signatures  were,  by  measurement 
and  superimposition,  shown  to  be  identically  the  same, 
forgery  was  alleged.  Among  numerous  other  witnesses 
called  as  experts  to  give  testimony  was  Professor  Peirce, 
of  Harvard  University,  who  entered  into  a  complicated 
mathematical  computation  to  show  how  many  times  a  man, 
under  the  law  of  chance,  would  be  required  to  write  his 
autograph  composed  of  fourteen  letters  before  three  dupli¬ 
cations  would  occur.  He  figured  the  number  to  be 
2,666,000,000,000,000,000,000  times.  Conceding  the  cor¬ 
rectness  of  his  conclusion  based  upon  a  signature  having 
fourteen  letters,  the  number  of  chances  of  exact  repetition 
would  be  multiplied  or  diminished  according  to  the  greater 
or  lesser  number  of  letters  in  any  given  signature,  and  also 
as  to  the  degree  of  eccentricity  or  caprice  in  the  habit  of 
the  writer. 


CHAPTER  V. 


PERSONS  DO  NOT  ALWAYS  RECOGNIZE  THEIR  OWN  SIGNATURES  - 

NOTABLE  INSTANCES  CITED. 

A  few  years  since  there  was  delivered  from  the  New 
York  Custom  House,  on  apparently  proper  orders,  two  bales 
of  valuable  silk.  Shortly  after  the  delivery  the  importing 
merchant  presented  his  regular  orders  for  the  silk,  which 
could  not  be  found.  The  two  orders  upon  which  it  already 
had  been  delivered  were  found  upon  the  file.  Obviously 
one  set  of  orders  was  forged.  All  were  written  upon  the 
regular  Custom  House  blanks  and  purported  to  bear  the 
O.  K.’s,  or  signatures,  of  the  heads  of  the  several  depart¬ 
ments  of  the  Custom  House  through  which  such  papers 
are  required  to  pass.  On  being  submitted  to  these  several 
persons,  each  unhesitatingly  pronounced  his  signature  to 
be  genuine,  but  no  one  was  found  who  admitted  having 
written  the  body  of  the  suspected  orders.  At  this  stage  of 
the  case  the  writer  was  called  to  the  Custom  House.  The 
suspected  orders,  together  with  specimens  of  the  writing  of 
every  employee  of  the  Custom  House  who,  from  his  posi¬ 
tion,  could  have  written  the  orders  were  submitted  to  him, 
with  a  request  that  he  discover,  if  possible,  the  person  who 
had  written  in  the  body  of  the  orders.  The  writer  was 
told  at  the  same  time  by  the  Collector,  Mr.  Magone,  that 
he  need  give  no  attention  to  the  signatures,  as  they  were 
all  admittedly  genuine,  only  the  written  filling-in  of  the 
orders  being  unidentified.  The  papers  were  taken  to  the 
private  office  of  the  Collector  for  examination.  Imme¬ 
diately  upon  inspection  of  the  writing  under  the  microscope 


6o 


U.  S.  CUSTOM  -  HOUSE  CASE. 


it  was  evident  that  not  only  the  writing  in  the  body,  but  all 
the  signatures  were  skillfully  executed  forgeries.  This  was 
reported  to  the  Collector,  who  excitedly  declared  that  it 
was  simply  folly  for  an  expert  to  set  his  opinion  against  the 
positive  admission  of  the  genuineness  of  their  signatures 
by  their  several  implicated  writers.  On  the  persistence  of 
the  expert,  however,  the  several  alleged  writers  of  the 
signatures  were  called  to  the  office,  where  each  reaffirmed 
that  his  signature  was  genuine.  Each  was  then  requested 
to  look  at  the  writing  through  the  microscope  and  observe 
the  uneven,  tremulous,  broken  lines  and  retouched  shades 
(one  of  which  was  the  heavy  staff  of  a  capital  J,  which 
had  first  been  made  with  a  light  stroke,  and  then  re¬ 
enforced  by  another,  the  two  strokes  being  separated  a 
portion  of  the  way  by  a  white  line),  and  say  if  that  was  in 
accordance  with  their  style  of  writing.  Each  became 
immediately  convinced  that  he  had  been  deceived,  and  that 
his  “  admittedly  genuine  signature  ”  was  really  a  very 
clever  forgery. 

When  questioned  originally  as  to  how  it  was  that  they 
had  signed  the  forged  orders,  the  first  on  the  list  replied 
that  in  the  routine  of  business  the  orders  came  to  him  in  a 
package  clamped  together.  As  he  turned  them  up  to  O.  K. 
them,  occasionally  two  would  come  up  together,  one  of. 
which  would  escape  the  O.  Iv.,  and  on  its  discovery  and 
return  to  him,  he  O.  K.’d  it  in  simply  a  perfunctory  manner. 
He  presumed  that  it  was  in  this  manner  that  these  spurious 
orders  had  received  his  O.  K.  The  second  accounted  for 
the  presence  of  his  O.  K.  from  the  fact  that  it  came  in  the 
usual  way,  indorsed  by  his  subordinate.  In  a  similar  man¬ 
ner  each  one  accounted  for  the  presence  of  his  name  upon 
the  forged  papers.  The  stolen  silk  was  traced  and  recov¬ 
ered.  Suspicion  soon  rested  upon  a  well-known  forger  as 
the  author  of  the  scheme  for  robbery  and  of  the  spurious 
orders.  Specimens  of  his  writing  were  secured,  and  upon 
comparison  it  was  identified  with  that  upon  the  orders.  He 


THE  CISCO  AND  GAULT  CASES.  6 1 

was  tried,  convicted,  and  sent  to  State’s  prison.  After 
conviction  he  confessed  to  the  forgery  and  the  entire  scheme 
for  robbery. 

The  Cisco  Case. — Some  years  since  one  of  the  best- 
known  bankers  of  New  York  City,  John  J.  Cisco,  testi¬ 
fied  in  court  in  a  very  positive  manner,  even  alleging  that 
he  could  not  be  mistaken,  that  he  had  written  a  certain 
signature  in  question  which  an  expert  had  just  declared  to 
be  a  forgery.  While  Mr.  Cisco  was  giving  his  testimony, 
the  expert,  Mr.  Joseph  E.  Paine,  sitting  at  a  table  in  the 
court-room,  wrote  an  imitation  of  the  signature,  which  was 
handed  to  Mr.  Cisco  (the  paper  being  so  covered  that  the 
signature  only  was  visible).  When  he  was  asked  concern¬ 
ing  it,  he  with  equal  positiveness  pronounced  it  to  be 
genuine.  His  surprise  may  be  imagined  when  on  the 
removal  of  the  surrounding  cover  he  perceived  it  to  be 
written  upon  a  scrap  of  paper,  and  was  informed  as  to  how 
it  had  been  written. 

The  Gault  Case. — Another  case  occurred  not  long 
since  in  Washington,  D.  C.  William  Gault,  a  wealthy 
merchant  of  Washington,  denied  the  genuineness  of  his 
signature  upon  an  indemnity  bond,  where  it  purported  to 
have  been  written  fifteen  years  before.  The  writer  gave 
testimony  showing  the  signature  to  be  genuine.  Mr.  Gault 
had  listened  attentively  to  the  evidence  presented,  and  the 
presumption  on  the  part  of  his  attorneys  was  that  he  would 
take  the  stand  and  reaffirm  his  denial  of  its  genuineness  ;  but 
to  their  utter  consternation  and  that  of  several  witnesses 
present,  including  one  handwriting  expert  called  to  sustain 
the  expected  denial,  Mr.  Gault,  when  he  took  the  stand, 
stated  that  he  had  changed  his  belief  respecting  his  signa¬ 
ture,  and  said,  “  I  now  believe  it  to  be  genuine.”  A  verdict 
was  at  once  rendered  accordingly. 


CHAPTER  Vi. 


WRITING  OVER  FOLDS  IN  THE  PAPER  AND  ONE  INK  -  LINE  OVER 
ANOTHER — INDICATIONS  BY  WHICH  THE  FACTS  MAY  BE  DETER¬ 
MINED —  IMPORTANT  CASES  CITED  AND  ILLUSTRATED. 

It  is  seldom  that  an  ink-line  can  be  carried  across  a  fold 
in  the  paper  or  another  ink-line  without  leaving  positive 
evidence  as  to  the  priority  of  the  fold  or  the  ink-line, 
which  fact  often  furnishes  material  evidence  as  to  the  gen¬ 
uineness  of  a  document  or  handwriting.  Pen-and-ink  lines 
are  usually  more  or  less  deflected  from  their  course  at  the 
point  of  intersection  with  a  fold,  and  if  the  fold  has  been 
sharp,  or  the  folding  and  unfolding  frequent,  the  fibres  of 
the  paper  will  have  been  more  or  less  drawn  and  loosened, 
imparting  to  the  paper  along  the  fold  a  more  or  less  spongy 
and  absorbent  condition ;  it  will,  therefore,  more  readily 
take  ink  from  the  pen  as  it  crosses  the  fold,  causing  an 
apparent  dot  or  a  longitudinal  ink-line  in  the  fold. 

On  the  next  page  we  present  examples.  The  first  rep¬ 
resents  writing  and  lines  before  and  after  the  paper  was 
folded.  The  second  is  a  representation  of  a  case  which  was 
lately  submitted  to  the  writer,  where  a  note  was  originally 
written  for  one  hundred  dollars,  but  was  presented  to  the 
executors  of  an  estate  for  forty-one  hundred  dollars.  The 
note  was  believed  to  be  a  forgery,  and  in  that  belief  it  was 
submitted  to  the  writer,  with  numerous  genuine  signatures, 
for  an  expert  opinion.  The  signature  was  found  to  be  gen¬ 
uine,  but  the  fact  that  the  note  was  originally  written  for 
one  hundred  dollars  was  discovered  and  presented  with  such 
evidence  as  to  result  in  the  withdrawal  of  the  entire  claim. 


WRITING  OVER  FOLDS  OF  PAPER. 


63 


WRITTEN  BEFORE  FOLDING. 


WRITTEN  AFTER  FOLDING. 


From  a  careful  inspection  of  the  writing  in  the  note  it 
was  first  observed  that,' among  the  figures  expressive  of  the 
amount,  the  figure  “4”  was  disproportionately  large  to 
the  others  and  more  crowded  in  the  space.  Referring  to 
the  word  “  Forty”  in  the  body  of  the  note,  it  appeared  at 
variance  with  the  other  writing,  being  more  formal  and  out 
of  harmony  as  to  slope,  but  this  might  all  be  the  result  of 
accident,  and  at  best  only  raised  a  more  or  less  strong  sus¬ 
picion  against  the  integrity  of  the  note.  But  it  was  further 
observed  that  the  word  “  Forty  ”  was  written  over  an 
erasure,  and  that  the  lower  part  of  the  F  extended  over 
a  fold  in  the  paper,  as  did  the  dash  before  it,  and  that  at 
each  of  the  three  points  of  crossing  of  the  fold  by  the  ink¬ 
lines,  there  was  an  expansion  of  the  ink  into  the  fold,  which 
was  not  the  fact  at  any  other  crossings  of  the  folds  by  ink¬ 
lines  on  the  note.  Thus  the  fact  was  demonstrated  that 
the  word  “  Forty  ”  had  been  written  and  the  dash  before  it 
made  after  the  note  had  been  folded,  while  the  other  por¬ 
tions  of  the  note  had  been  filled  in  prior  to  its  having 
been  folded,  proving  conclusively  that  the  note  had  been 
fraudulently  raised  from  one  to  forty-one  hundred  dollars. 


64 


MISER  PAINE  CASE. 


Miser  Paine  Case. — James  Henry  Paine  died  in  New 
York  on  December  22,  1885,  in  the  habiliments  of  pov¬ 
erty.  From  his  mode  of  life  and  personal  appearance,  he 
was  regarded  by  all  but  a  few  intimates  as  a  dire -beset 
mendicant.  He  lived  alone  in  one  of  the  shabbiest  old 
attics  in  a  poor  quarter  of  the  city,  and  sustained  life  on 
leaving's  begfgfed  at  various  restaurants  and  saloons. 

Among  the  men  who  knew  of  Paine’s  real  circumstances, 
and  that  he  was  really  possessed  of  great  wealth,  was  one 
John  H.  Ward  well,  a  New  York  lawyer,  who  defrayed  the 
expenses  of  his  funeral,  and  claimed  to  be  in  absolute 
charge  of  all  his  affairs.  In  substantiation  of  his  claim  he 
produced  a  sweeping  power  of  attorney,  alleging  that  it 
had  been  given  to  him  by  Paine.  Wardwell  immediately 
sought  out  the  relatives  of  Paine  and  endeavored  to  secure 
their  consent  to  accept  one  half  of  whatever  sum  he  might 
realize  from  the  estate,  claiming  at  the  same  time  that 
Paine  had  left  a  will  bestowing  upon  him  his  entire  estate. 
Some  of  the  heirs,  however,  grew  suspicious  and  refused 
assent  to  Ward  well’s  scheme,  but  at  once  took  measures  to 
oppose  it.  On  a  petition  to  the  Surrogate,  an  adminis¬ 
trator  was  appointed.  Able  counsel  was  employed  on  both 
sides,  Ex-Governor  D.  H.  Chamberlain  by  Wardwell,  and 
Ex-Judge  Leslie  Russell  for  the  administrator. 

Property  belonging  to  the  estate  aggregating  millions 
was  soon  discovered.  Wardwell  continued  to  push  his 
claim,  both  as  Paine’s  legatee  under  an  alleged  but  undis¬ 
covered  will,  and  by  virtue  of  his  power  of  attorney.  The 
genuineness  of  the  power  of  attorney,  which  was  confess¬ 
edly  in  Ward  well’s  handwriting,  was  questioned  by  the 
counsel  for  the  administrator  and  submitted  to  the  writer, 
who  found,  upon  examination,  that  the  signature  was  genu¬ 
ine,  but  that,  as  originally  signed,  it  was  special,  only 
conferring  power  to  settle  Paine’s  interest  in  the  affairs  of 
the  estate  of  a  deceased  brother,  but  that  subsequently, 
over  three  lines  of  writing  had  been  added,  thereby  con- 


CHANGED  POWER  OF  ATTORNEY. 


65 


verting  it  from  a  special  into  a  general  power  of  attorney. 
The  reason  for  this  opinion  was  as  remarkable  as  it  was 
conclusive. 


FACSIMILE  OF  THE  CHANGED  POWER  OF  ATTORNEY. 


/t/JJL;  (  a/  /v<s 


We  quote  from  the  report  of  the  court  proceedings  in 
the  New  York  Times : — 

“  With  the  document  (the  power  of  attorney)  in  his  hand  and  a 
large  microscope  beside  him,  Mr.  Ames  said  that  he  had  devoted  sev¬ 
eral  hours  the  day  before  to  the  examination  of  the  power  of  attorney, 
and  had  discovered  that  the  latter  part  of  the  writing,  including  three 
and  one-half  lines,  beginning  with  the  words  ‘as  if  done,’  down  to  and 


66 


EVIDENCE  OF  THE  CHANGE. 


including  the  final  word  ‘  concerned,’  had  been  written  subsequently 
to  the  writing  of  the  signature.  The  importance  of  this  evidence  is 
apparent  when  it  is  seen  that  the  alleged  added  words  radically  changed 
the  powers  conferred  by  the  document  upon  Wardwell,  rendering  them 
unlimited  instead  of  limited.  No  question  existed  as  to  Wardwell’ s 
having  written  the  entire  body  of  the  document.  The  expert  under¬ 
took  to  prove  it,  but  Wardwell’ s  counsel,  to  save  time,  admitted  that 
his  client  was  the  writer.  The  expert  having  made  his  assertion,  pro¬ 
ceeded  to  give  his  reasons  in  support  of  it.  He  called  attention  to 
what  he  claimed  was,  under  the  microscope,  clear  evidence  of  an  erasure 
between  the  words  ‘as’  and  ‘if,’  the  s  of  the  ‘as,’  and  the  i  of  the 
‘if’  being  written  over  the  erasure,  which  also  had  obliterated  a  por¬ 
tion  of  the  base  line.  He  was  sure  that  the  last  three  and  one  half 
lines  of  the  body  of  the  document  had  been  written  subsequently  to  the 
part  preceding. 

“Ex-Governor  Chamberlain  conceded  that  it  was  the  case,  and  said 
that  it  was  so  written  by  advice  of  Ethan  Allen. 

“  ‘  Will  you  concede  that  it  was  written  after  the  signature?  ’  Judge 
Russell  asked. 

“.‘I  am  hardly  going  to  plead  guilty  for  my  client,’  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain  answered,  in  his  most  sarcastic  manner. 

“  The  expert  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  added  words  were  writ¬ 
ten  after  the  signature,  and  explained  that  part  of  the  word  ‘  interests  ’ 
ran  into  the  J  of  the  signature,  and  that  the  word  ‘  are  ’  was  actually 
elevated  to  avoid  contact  with  the  Pin  ‘Paine.’  Also  that  the  general 
crowded  appearance  of  the  writing  on  that  part  of  the  document  is  at 
variance  with  other  portions  of  it,  and  in  view  of  the  large  space  below 
he  could  not  believe  that  the  signature  would  have  been  so  crowded 
into  the  writing  above  had  it  been  there  before  signing.  Mr.  Ames 
also  believed  that  the  word  ‘  witness  ’  had  been  written  after  the  signa¬ 
ture.  But  the  astonishing  demonstration  followed  when  Mr.  Ames 
pointed  out  the  fact  that  across  the  document  were  two  well-worn  folds 
in  the  paper.’’ 

These  folds  are  represented  in  the  accompanying  cut  by 
two  black  lines.  Wherever  lines  crossed  the  upper  fold, 
the  ink-lines  were  broken  by  a  white  line  in  the  fold,  while 
this  was  true  only  of  one  line  crossing  the  lower  fold. 
That  line  was  the  loop  of  the  letter  y  in  “by,”  the  first 
word.  From  this  point  forward,  from  every  line  crossing 
the  fold,  the  ink  had  run  into  the  fold  so  as  to  make  a 


CROSSING  OF  INK -LINES. 


67 


strong  black  line  at  the  point  of  the  crossing.  See  f  in  “  if,” 
y  in  “  by y  and  f  in  “myself,”^  in  “  begin,”  p  twice  in 
“appoint,”  h  and  b  in  “hereby,”  m  in  “my,”  and  h  in 
“  this.”  This  made  a  conclusive  demonstration  that  all  of 
the  document,  before  and  including  the  words  “by  me,”  was 
written  before  the  paper  was  folded,  and  that  all  following 
these  words  was  written  subsequently  to  the  folding,  show¬ 
ing  that  the  document  had  been  written  upon  two  different 
occasions,  separated  by  a  period  of  considerable  use.  It 
was  also  shown  that  the  paper  was  written  with  three  dif¬ 
ferent  kinds  of  ink.  These  facts  disposed  most  effectually 
of  the  power  of  attorney  and  all  pretensions  of  Mr.  Ward- 
well  as  a  claimant  in  the  case.  He  shortly  afterward  died, 
apparently  from  worry  and  fear  of  a  criminal  prosecution, 
for  the  role  he  had  played  as  a  forger  and  perjurer. 

The  Crossing  of  Ink-Lines. — Which  of  two  ink-lines 
crossing  each  other  was  made  first,  is  not  always  easy  of 
demonstration.  To  the  inexperienced  observer  the  blackest 
line  will  always  appear  to  be  on  top,  and  unless  the  exam¬ 
iner  has  given  much  intelligent  observation  to  the  phe¬ 
nomena  and  the  proper  methods  of  observing  it,  mistakes 
are  very  liable  to  be  made.  Owing  to  the  well-known  fact 
that  an  inked  surface  presents  a  stronger  chemical  affinity 
for  ink  than  does  a  paper  surface,  when  one  ink-line  crosses 
another,  the  ink  will  How  out  from  the  crossing  line  upon 
the  surface  of  the  line  crossed,  slightly  beyond  where  it 
flows  upon  the  paper  surface  on  each  side,  thus  causing  the 
crossing  line  to  appear  broadened  upon  the  line  crossed. 
Also  an  excess  of  ink  will  remain  in  the  pen  furrows  of  the 
crossing  line,  intensifying  them  and  causing  them  to  appear 
stronger  and  blacker  than  the  furrows  of  the  line  crossed. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


METHODS  OF  FORGERY,  THEIR  DETECTION  AND  ILLUSTRATION — 
FORGERY  BY  THE  AID  OF  A  TRACING,  HOW  EFFECTED,  AND 
THE  INEVITABLE  INDICATIONS  ;  ALSO  FREE-HAND  FORGERY, 
AND  THE  METHODS  OF  ITS  DETECTION.* 

There  are  two  general  methods  of  perpetrating  for¬ 
geries  ;  one  by  the  aid  of  tracing,  the  other  by  free-hand 
writing.  These  methods  differ  widely  in  details,  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  circumstances  of  each  case. 

Tracing  can  only  be  employed  when  a  signature  or  writ¬ 
ing  is  present  in  the  exact  or  approximate  form  of  the 
desired  reproduction.  It  may  then  be  done  by  placing  the 
writing  to  be  forged  upon  a  transparency  over  a  strong 
light,  and  then  superimposing  the  paper  upon  which  the 
forgery  is  to  be  made.  The  outline  of  the  writing  under¬ 
neath  will  then  appear  sufficiently  plain  to  enable  it  to  be 
traced  with  pen  or  pencil,  so  as  to  produce  a  very  accu¬ 
rate  copy  upon  the  superimposed  paper.  If  the  outline  is 
with  a  pencil,  it  is  afterward  marked  over  with  ink. 

Again,  tracings  are  made  by  placing  transparent  tracing- 
paper  over  the  writing  to  be  copied  and  then  tracing  the 
lines  over  with  a  pencil.  This  tracing  is  then  penciled  or 
blackened  upon  the  obverse  side.  When  it  is  placed  upon 
the  paper  on  which  the  forgery  is  to  be  made,  the  lines 
upon  the  tracing  are  retraced  with  a  stylus  or  other  smooth, 
hard  point,  which  impresses  upon  the  paper  underneath 
a  faint  outline,  which  serves  as  a  guide  to  the  forged 
imitation. 

*  See  Bird  Case,  on  another  page. 


EVIDENCE  OF  FORGERY  BY  TRACINGS.  69 

In  forgeries  perpetrated  by  the  aid  of  tracing,  the  inter¬ 
nal  evidence  is  more  or  less  conclusive,  according  to  the 
skill  of  the  forger.  In  the  perpetration  of  a  forgery  the 
mind,  instead  of  being  occupied  in  the  usual  function  of 
supplying  matter  to  be  recorded,  devotes  its  special  atten¬ 
tion  to  the  superintendence  of  the  hand,  directing  its 
movements,  so  that  the  hand  no  longer  glides  naturally  and 
automatically  over  the  paper,  but  moves  slowly  with  a  halt¬ 
ing,  vacillating  motion,  as  the  eye  passes  to  and  from  the 
copy  to  the  pen,  moving  under  the  specific  control  of  the 
will.  Evidence  of,  such  a  forgery  is  manifest  in  the  formal, 
broken,  nervous  lines,  the  uneven  flow  of  the  ink,  and  the 
often  retouched  lines  and  shades.  These  evidences  are 
unmistakable  when  studied  with  the  aid  of  a  microscope. 
Also,  further  evidence  is  adduced  by  a  careful  comparison 
of  the  disputed  writing,  noting  the  pen-pressure  or  absence 
of  any  of  the  delicate  unconscious  forms,  relations,  shades, 
etc.,  characteristic  of  the  standard  writing. 

Forgeries  by  tracings  usually  present  a  close  resemblance 
in  general  form  to  the  genuine,  and  are  therefore  most  sure 
to  deceive  the  unfamiliar  or  casual  observer.  It  sometimes 
happens  that  the  original  writing  from  which  the  tracings 
were  made  is  discovered,  in  which  case  the  closely  dupli¬ 
cated  forms  will  be  positive  evidence  of  forgery.  The 
degree  to  which  one  signature  or  writing  duplicates  another 
may  be  readily  seen  by  placing  one  over  the  other,  and 
holding  them  to  a  window  or  other  strong  light,  or  by  close 
comparative  measurements. 

Traced  forgeries,  however,  are  not,  as  is  usually  sup¬ 
posed,  necessarily  exact  duplicates  of  their  originals,  since 
it  is  very  easy  to  move  the  paper  by  accident  or  design 
while  the  tracing  is  being  made,  or  while  making  the  trans¬ 
fer  copy  from  it ;  so  that  while  it  serves  as  a  guide  to  the 
general  features  of  the  original,  it  will  not,  when  tested, 
be  an  exact  duplication.  The  danger  of  an  exact  duplica¬ 
tion  is  quite  generally  understood  by  persons  having  any 


JO  EXAMPLES  OF  FORGERY,  FREE-HAND  AND  TRACING. 

knowledge  of  forgery,  and  is  therefore  avoided.  Another 
difficulty  is  that  the  very  delicate  features  of  the  original 
writing  are  more  or  less  obscured  by  the  opaqueness  of  two 
sheets  ot  paper,  and  are  therefore  changed  or  omitted  from 
the  forged  simulation,  and  their  absence  is  usually  supplied, 
through  force  of  habit,  by  equally  delicate  unconscious 
characteristics  from  the  writing  of  the  forger.  Again,  the 
forger  rarely  possesses  the  requisite  skill  to  exactly  repro¬ 
duce  his  tracing.  Much  of  the  minutiae  of  the  original 
writing  is  more  or  less  microscopic,  and  from  that  reason 
passes  unobserved  by  the  forger.  Outlines  of  writing  to 
be  forged  are  sometimes  simply  drawn  with  a  pencil,  and 
then  worked  up  in  ink.  Such  outlines  will  not  usually 
furnish  so  good  an  imitation  as  to  form,  since  they  depend 
wholly  upon  the  imitative  skill  of  the  forger. 

Besides  the  forementioned  evidences  of  forgery  by 
tracing,  where  pencil  or  carbon  guide-lines  are  used,  which 
must  necessarily  be  removed  by  rubber,  there  are  liable  to 
remain  some  slight  fragments  of  the  tracing  lines,  while  the 
mill  finish  of  the  paper  will  be  impaired  and  its  fiber  more 
or  less  torn  out,  so  as  to  lie  loose  upon  the  surface.  Also 
the  ink  will  be  more  or  less  ground  off  from  the  paper,  thus 


ORIGINAL  SIZE. 
G  ENUINE. 


FORGE O  FREE  HAND. 


ENLARGED  COPIES  TO  AID  COMPARISON. 


72 


EVIDENCE  OF  FREE-IIAND  FORGERIES. 


giving  the  lines  a  gray  and  lifeless  appearance.  And  as 
retouchings  are  usually  made  after  the  guide-lines  have 
been  removed,  the  ink,  wherever  they  occur,  will  have  a 
more  black  and  fresh  appearance  than  elsewhere.  All  these 
phenomena  are  plainly  manifest  under  the  microscope. 
Where  the  tracing  is  made  directly  with  pen  and  ink  over  a 
transparency,  as  is  often  done,  no  rubbing  is  necessary,  and 
of  course  the  phenomena  from  rubbering  does  not  appear. 

Where  signatures  or  other  writings  have  been  forged  by 
previously  making  a  study  and  practice  of  the  writing,  to  be 
copied  until  it  has  been  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  ideal¬ 
ized,  the  hand  must  be  trained  to  its  imitation  so  that  it  can 
be  written  with  a  more  or  less  approximation  as  to  form 
and  with  natural  freedom. 

Forgeries  thus  made  by  skillful  imitators  are  the  most 
difficult  of  detection,  as  the  internal  evidence  of  forgery  by 
tracing  is  mostly  absent.  The  evidence  of  free-hand  for¬ 
gery  is  chiefly  in  the  greater  liability  of  the  forger  to  inject 
into  the  writing  his  own  unconscious  habit,  and  to  fail  to 
reproduce  with  sufficient  accuracy  that  of  the  original 
writing,  so  that  when  subjected  to  rigid  analysis  and  micro¬ 
scopic  inspection,  the  spuriousness  is  made  manifest  and 
demonstrable.  Specific  attention  should  be  given  to 
any  hesitancy  in  form  or  movement,  manifest  in  angularity 
or  change  of  direction  of  lines,  changed  relations  and  pro¬ 
portions  of  letters,  slant  of  the  writing,  its  mechanical 
arrangement,  disconnected  lines,  retouched  shades,  etc. 

Photographs,  greatly  enlarged,  of  both  the  signatures  in 
question  and  the  exemplars  placed  side  by  side  for  com¬ 
parison  will  greatly  aid  in  making  plain  any  evidences  of 
forgery.  (See  uses  of  photography  in  another  chapter.) 

If  practicable,  use  for  comparison  as  standards  both  the 
imitated  writing  and  that  of  the  imitator.  These  methods, 
employed  by  skilled  and  experienced  examiners,  will  rarely 
fail  of  establishing  the  true  relationship  between  any  two 
disputed  handwritings. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


THE  USE  OF  EXPERT  TESTIMONY  RESPECTING  HANDWRITING  —  HIS¬ 
TORICAL  CASES  IN  ENGLISH,  FRENCH  AND  AMERICAN  COURTS, 
AND  THE  ESTIMATE  PLACED  UPON  SUCH  TESTIMONY  BY  HIGH 
JUDICIAL  AUTHORITY. 

Assuming  as  an  incontrovertible  fact  that  the  writing  of 
no  two  persons  can  ever  be  identically  the  same,  it  certainly 
follows  that  there  must  exist  between  all  writings  a  distin¬ 
guishable  difference,  and  that  those  persons  who,  by  reason 
of  their  specially  acute  natural  discernment,  and  by  their 
special  study  and  experience  in  the  observation  of  these  dis¬ 
tinctions,  must  come  to  have  greater  skill  in  their  discovery 
and  specification  than  can  others  not  so  favorably  circum¬ 
stanced,  and  that  the  conclusions  which  such  specialists  may 
reach  from  the  study  and  comparison  of  different  hand¬ 
writings  will  be  reliable  to  the  degree  of  their  special  skill 
and  integrity  and  the  circumstances  of  the  case. 

To  the  casual  observer,  different  handwritings  often  look 
alike  and  would  be  mistaken  one  for  the  other.  Few  people 
could  distinguish  between  the  track  of  a  small  dog  and  that 
of  a  cat  of  approximate  size,  yet  the  naturalist  would  readily 
and  unerringly  do  so.  To  Mr.  Jones  “All  coons  look 
alike,” — because  he  is  unfamiliar  with  coons.  There  are 
few  men  who  can  recognize  one  bay  mule  from  another  in  a 
drove,  yet  the  dealer  readily  can  do  so.  His  eye  is  trained. 
So  it  is  in  all  the  affairs  of  life ;  the  trained  eye  and  judg¬ 
ment  of  the  specialist  observe  distinctions  that  escape  the 
eye  of  the  novice.  The  distinctive  value  of  the  specialist’s 
knowledge  and  skill  is  recognized  in  every  walk  of  life  — 


74 


ANTIQUITY  OF  EXPERT  TESTIMONY. 


he  is  our  tailor,  architect,  dentist,  doctor,  lawyer,  teacher, 
blacksmith,  and  so  on  to  the  end. 

From  time  immemorial  such  persons  have  been  called 
into  courts  to  express  their  opinions  and  present  their  rea¬ 
sons  for  such  opinions  concerning  their  respective  callings. 

Under  the  Roman  law,  the  judex ,  or  judge,  had  the 
right,  whenever  he  chose,  to  summon  those  who  were  spe¬ 
cially  skilled  or  informed  in  any  art,  trade,  or  calling,  to 
inform  him  respecting  the  same. 

In  English  courts  expert  testimony  has  long  been  admit¬ 
ted.  In  1553,  Mr.  Justice  Saunders  said:  “  If  matters 
arise  in  our  law  which  concern  other  sciences  or  faculties, 
we  commonly  appeal  to  the  aid  of  that  science  or  faculty 
which  it  concerns,  which  is  an  honorable  and  commendable 
thing  in  our  law,  for  thereby  it  appears  that  we  do  not 
despise  all  other  sciences  but  our  own,  but  we  approve  of 
them  and  encourage  them  as  things  worthy  of  commenda¬ 
tion.” 

In  1774,  a  celebrated  case  was  tried,  where  Olivia, 
Princess  of  Cumberland,  contested  a  claim  under  the  will  of 
King  George  the  Third,  and  by  the  aid  of  handwriting 
experts,  discovered  and  proved  an  ingenious  forgery,  estab¬ 
lishing  her  claim  to  a  legacy  of  the  value  of  fifteen  thousand 
pounds.  In  the  famous  Tichborne  trial,  handwriting  experts 
played  a  conspicuous  part. 

The  trial  of  Miss  Edmonds,  of  Brighton,  for  poisoning 
a  child,  was  a  peculiarly  strange  case.  She  had  bought 
poison  of  a  chemist  under  the  assumed  name  of  Wood, 
which  name  she  signed  on  the  register  for  the  sale  of  poison. 
At  the  time  of  the  inquest  on  the  child,  who  died  from  eating 
poisoned  chocolates,  she  forged  a  letter  in  the  name  of  the 
coroner,  requesting  the  loan  of  the  chemist’s  book  for 
inspection  at  the  inquest.  The  chemist  gave  the  book  to 
the  boy  who  brought  the  letter,  and  he  carried  it  to  Miss 
Edmonds,  who  tore  out,  as  she  supposed,  the  entry  she 
had  written.  It  appeared,  however,  on  the  trial  that  the 


A  FRENCH  CASE  — DE  LA  RONCIER. 


75 


abstracted  entry  referred  to  another  Miss  Wood,  and  that 
the  true  criminal’s  writing  remained.  An  expert  proved 
to  the  satisfaction  of  the  court  that  the  letter  and  signature 
were  both  written  by  Miss  Edmonds,  who  was  convicted  of 
the  alleged  crime. 

An  Interesting  French  Case. —  Among  the  causes 
cdebres  in  which  the  identity  of  handwriting  has  come 
before  the  courts  of  France  was  one  which  excited  univer¬ 
sal  interest.  One  De  la  Roncier,  a  young  man  of  noble 
family,  was  tried  for  writing  and  sending  anonymous  letters 
to  the  various  members  of  another  family  of  distinction. 
This  case  is  entitled,  “Tentative  de  viol”  (  “Attempt  at 
Rape  ” ). 

The  members  of  a  distinguished  family,  the  head  of  which, 
General  Morell,  was  commandant  of  a  military  school  for 
cavalry,  residing  at  Saumur,  upon  the  banks  of  the  River 
Loire,  were  recipients  of  a  great  number  of  anonymous 
letters,  which  seemed  dictated  by  a  malicious  spirit  of  injury 
and  to  annoy  the  family,  and  especially  a  young  lady,  daughter 
of  the  General.  This  state  of  things  becoming  unendurable, 
an  effort  was  made  to  discover  the  guilty  author  of  the 
mischief.  This  seemed  not  very  difficult,  as  the  writer  par¬ 
tially  signed  his  supposed  name.  Accordingly  a  young 
officer,  attendant  at  the  school,  and  son  of  a  distinguished 
general  decorated  with  the  Legion  of  Honor,  was  arrested. 
The  daughter,  in  addition  to  the  authorship  of  the  letters, 
charged  him  with  a  dastardly  attempt  at  violation.  He  was 
arrested,  though  denying  all  knowledge  of  the  matter,  and 
brought  to  trial.  The  distinction  of  the  families,  the  sin¬ 
gularity  of  the  charges,  and  the  publicity  given  to  the  affair, 
occasioned  a  wide-spread  interest.  The  Palais  de  Justice 
was  crowded  with  the  elite  of  the  nobility  and  distinguished 
strangers,  entering  with  cards  of  admission,  and  immense 
throngs  were  unable  to  gain  admittance. 

The  letters  were  submitted  to  five  handwriting  experts, 


76 


CONVICTION  AGAINST  EXPERT  TESTIMONY. 


four  of  whom,  after  a  careful  examination  and  comparison 
of  the  letters  with  the  writing  of  De  la  Roncier,  united  in 
saying  that  the  letters  could  not  have  been  written  by  him, 
while  the  fifth  in  some  respects  differed  in  his  opinion. 

The  case  was  decided  against  him,  and  he  was  con¬ 
demned  to  ten  years  of  solitary  confinement  in  prison.  He 
was  imprisoned  fourteen  months,  when  facts  came  to  light 
that  proved  conclusively  that  he  was  entirely  innocent  of 
the  alleged  crime,  and  he  was  set  at  liberty.  The  most 
astonishing  fact  was  revealed  that  the  accusing  young  woman 
had  written  all  the  letters. 

Here  was  an  instance  where  a  verdict  was  rendered  against 

o 

expert  testimony,  and  an  innocent  victim  made  to  suffer 
humiliation  and  imprisonment.  Another  peculiarity  of  the 
case  was  that  an  extremely  eloquent  advocate  opposed  and 
disparaged  the  testimony  of  the  experts  on  the  ground  of 
their  agreement.  “  One  might  have  supposed  that  they 
themselves  were  guilty  of  crime.”  They  were  insulted  for 
agreeing,  and  were  compared  with  the  Roman  augurs,  of 
whom  it  had  been  declared  to  be  wonderful  that  they  could 
look  each  other  in  the  face  without  laughing.  It  was 
alleged  that  experts  always  agreed,  lest,  by  disagreement, 
their  profession  should  be  discredited  and  want  for  patron¬ 
age.  The  more  common  course  of  attorneys  is  to  catechise 
experts  as  to  their  disagreements,  and  then  characterize 
their  testimony  as  contradictory,  and  hence  of  little  or  no 
value. 

One  of  the  most  able  and  interesting  labors  and  reports, 
rendered  by  an  expert  was  that  of  the  celebrated  English 
expert,  Mr.  Chabot,  on  the  authorship  of  the  mysterious 
and  world-famous  “  Junius  Letters.”  This  report  was 
embodied  in  an  exhaustive  publication  by  the  Hon.  Sir 
Edward  TwisletonA  The  analysis  of  writing  was  most 
painstaking  and  exhaustive  and  reflects  great  credit  upon 
the  patient  skill  of  Mr.  Chabot. 

*  This  report  will  be  more  fully  treated  elsewhere  in  this  work. 


AN  INGENIOUSLY  FORGED  WILL. 


77 


The  value  of  expert  testimony,  says  an  eminent  English 
writer,  “  was  never  more  strikingly  exemplified  than  in  a 
recent  case  of  forgery  —  one  of  the  most  ingenious  and 
daring  that  has  ever  occupied  the  attention  of  a  court  of  law, 
the  perpetrators  of  which  were  convicted  of  the  crimes  of 
conspiracy  and  forgery  at  the  Old  Bailey.”  The  document 
in  question  was  a  will,  the  signature  to  which  was  undoubt¬ 
edly  genuine ;  the  whole  of  which,  indeed,  to  all  appear¬ 
ances,  was  in  regular  form  and  duly  witnessed.  It  devised 
some  seventy  thousand  pounds,  the  greater  part  of  which 
was  left  by  the  testator  to  the  man  in  whose  house  he  was 
lodging,  five  thousand  pounds  only  being  bequeathed  to 
his  only  son  alive,  to  whose  knowledge  and  to  whom,  by 
a  later  will,  never  found  and  presumably  destroyed,  there 
was  a  bequest  of  almost  the  entire  estate.  On  the  face  of 
the  document,  apparently  so  unimpeachable,  there  was 
nothing  to  do  but  to  submit,  and  the  unfortunate  son,  under 
the  form  of  a  compromise,  was  glad  to  fall  back  upon  the 
generosity  of  the  principal  legatee  and  accept  something 
more  than  his  five  thousand  pounds,  with  the  understanding 
that  he  keep  quiet.  But  on  the  thieves  beginning  to  quar¬ 
rel  among  themselves  about  their  shares  in  the  booty,  one 
of  the  discontented  began  to  talk.  He  was  encouraged  to 
continue,  and  finally  gave  enough  information  to  warrant 
an  application  to  the  probate  court  to  set  aside  the  compro¬ 
mise  as  based  on  a  fraud.  The  whole  modus  operandi  was 
then  made  clear,  and  proved  to  have  been  almost  exactly  as 
had  been  suspected  by  the  expert  to  whom,  at  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  the  proceedings,  the  will  had  been  submitted  for 
examination,  and  who  had  made  the  following  observations 
upon  it : — 

“In  the  first  place,  the  signatures  were  all  genuine,  and  the  docu¬ 
ment  itself  is  in  the  hand  of  one  of  the  attesting  witnesses — a  fact 
fully  admitted.  The  testator’s  signature  was  at  the  bottom,  and  the 
attesting  clauses  rather  curiously  cramped  at  the  sides,  from  their  posi¬ 
tion  giving  rise  to  the  idea  in  the  expert’s  mind  that  they  had  been 


/S  REVELATION  FROM  A  PALIMPSEST. 

added  subsequently  with  a  view  to  accommodating  the  signature.  The 
signature  itself,  too,  had  a  date  under  it,  a  peculiarity  of  the  testator’s 
in  writing  a  letter,  but  never  found  elsewhere.  On  further  examination 
of  the  body  of  the  will,  there  appeared  a  certain  variation  of  the  spacing 
between  the  lines,  as  though  the  writer  had  begun  in  the  belief  that 
there  was  ample  room  ;  then  he  had  narrowed  the  intervening  spaces, 
had  pressed  more  words  into  the  line,  and  finally,  finding  there  was 
still  paper  to  be  covered,  had  spread  out  again  towards  the  end.  In 
short,  everything  seemed  to  point  to  a  will  written  over  and  around  a 
signature,  and  not  to  a  signature  naturally  written  at  the  bottom  of 
the  will,  to  say  nothing  of  the  suspicious  circumstances  of  the  date.” 

In  the  mean  time  there  began  to  appear  in  different  parts 
of  the  paper,  steadily  and  surely,  like  growths  that  would 
not  be  denied,  certain  marks  and  formations,  as  though 
underneath  all  this  fair  show  the  suspected  fraud  was 
bent  on  making  itself  visible.  Early  in  the  inquiry, 
the  will  had  been  glazed  and  framed,  and  now,  left  to  itself, 
the  paper  began  to  speak,  as  it  were,  and  to  declare  itself 
otherwise  than  what  it  seemed.  They  were  not  pencil- 
marks,  but  the  hollows  and  shades  where  pencil-marks  had 
been,  and  soon  they  took  the  form  of  words  and  fragments 
of  words,  and  by  the  aid  of  a  powerful  magnifying-glass 
could  even  be  read  with  sufficient  clearness  to  enable  the 
expert  to  say  that  they  were  in  the  handwriting  of  one  of 
the  attesting  witnesses  and  principal  legatee,  the  prime 
mover  in  the  fraud,  as  it  afterwards  appeared.  It  has  long 
been  known  to  those  who  have  had  experience  of  palimp¬ 
sests  that  time  will  often  recall  a  writing  long  believed  to 
have  been  obliterated.  Erase  the  writing  carefully  as  you 
will,  till  all  trace  of  pencil  or  pen  be  gone,  yet  with  most 
kinds  of  paper  all  that  will  be  erased  will  be  the  immediate 
marks  of  the  plumbago  or  the  ink.  There  will  still  remain 
the  indentations  in  the  paper,  which  after  a  time  fill  up,  like 
cart-ruts,  with  the  dust  and  surface  of  the  material  rubbed 
across  them,  and  in  time  gradually  clear  themselves  and 
reappear.  Here,  then,  was  clearly  a  palimpsest  of  one  kind  or 
another,  an  ink-writing  over  pencil, —  apparently,  from  what 


JUDICIAL  OPINION  OF  EXPERTS. 


79 


could  be  deciphered,  a  letter ;  for  at  the  head  of  the  docu¬ 
ment  traces  of  “My  dear”  could  be  seen — a  suspicious 
fact,  to  which  the  date  under  the  signature  also  pointed  in 
corroboration.  And  that  is  precisely  what  had  occurred ; 
for  the  testator,  believing  himself  to  be  in  extremis , 
desired  the  presence  of  his  son,  and  at  his  request  the 
principal  legatee  had  written  for  him  a  letter,  taking  the 
precaution  of  writing  it  in  pencil,  while  he  was  equally  care¬ 
ful  that  the  signature  should  be  in  ink.  Then  the  pencil 
was  rubbed  out  entirely,  as  it  seemed,  and  over  the  pre¬ 
cious  signature  the  will  was  written,  dividing  the  property 
among  the  testating  witnesses  and  legatees,  and  practically 
disinheriting  the  son.  The  same  writer  continues:  — 

“Experts  have  often  been  somewhat  cavalierly  treated,  both  by 
judge  and  jury,  but  (as  far  as  judges,  at  any  rate,  have  been  con¬ 
cerned)  that  was  never  a  treatment  characteristic  of  the  late  Lord  Chief 
Justice  Cockburn,  who  perhaps  had  more  occasions  of  dealing  with 
their  evidence  in  important  cases  than  any  other  authority  on  the  bench. 
No  one  can  read  his  analysis  of  the  different  handwritings  in  the  Tich- 
borne  case,  on  the  nineteenth  day  of  the  summing-up,  without  feeling 
he  fully  recognized  the  value  of  the  test ;  for  there  is  nothing,  he  very 
truly  says,  in  which  men  differ  more  than  in  handwriting,  and  nothing 
which  a  man  is  less  likely  completely  to  lose,  or  even  greatly  alter, 
unless  in  sickness  or  old  age  ;  so  far  that  is,  of  course,  as  its  leading 
features  are  concerned.  Put  a  man  down  to  write  whose  identity  is  in 
question,  and  it  will  go  a  long  way  to  settle  any  doubts  there  may  be.* 
And  in  an  earlier  case,  Cresswell  v.  Jackson,  reported  in  the  fourth 
volume  of  Foster  and  Finlason,  the  view  of  Cockburn,  Chief  Justice,  as 
he  then  was,  on  the  value  of  expert  evidence  is  so  fairly  put  that  it 
may  be  adopted  by  all  whose  minds  are  not  fully  made  up  on  the 
subject :  ‘  The  evidence  of  professional  witnesses  is  to  be  viewed  with 
some  degree  of  distrust,  for  it  is  generally  with  some  bias.  But  within 
proper  limits  it  is  a  very  valuable  assistance  in  inquiries  of  this  kind. 
The  advantage  is  that  habits  of  writing,  as  shown  in  minute  points 
which  escape  common  observation,  are  quite  observable  when  pointed 
out ;  are  detected  and  disclosed  by  science,  skill,  and  experience.  And 
it  is  so  in  the  comparison  of  handwriting  by  the  assistance  of  experts.’  ” 

*  Note,  in  this  connection,  the  case  of  Theophilus  Youngs,  which  supple¬ 
ments  this  chapter. — D.  T.  A. 


8o 


JUDGE  FURSMAN  ON  EXPERT  TESTIMONY. 


In  the  courts  of  the  United  States,  the  cases  in  which 
expert  testimony  has  figured  conspicuously,  and  in  which  its 
value  has  been  recognized  by  courts  and  juries,  are  very 
numerous.  A  few  of  the  many  cases  will  be  found  in 
detail,  with  illustrations,  on  other  pages  of  this  work.  We 
here  quote  one  of  the  more  recent  unpublished  instances, 
where  a  very  learned  judge  of  the  New  York  Supreme 
Court,  the  Hon.  Edgar  L.  Fursman,  in  his  charge  to  the 
jury,  paid  a  fitting  tribute  to  the  value  of  the  testimony  of 
experts  in  a  case  that  hinged  chiefly  on  that  class  of  testi¬ 
mony.  We  quote  from  the  court  stenographer’s  report:  — 

“The  Court:  The  prosecution  rely  upon  the  evidence  of  three 
experts  who  have  testified  in  your  hearing.  These  experts  united  in 
the  opinion  that  the  letter  which  is  charged  in  the  indictment  was  writ¬ 
ten  by  the  same  person  who  wrote  the  letter  to  Judge  Fitzgerald  and 
the  letter  to  Mrs.  Bridgham,  which  have  been  put  in  evidence,  and 
which  the  defendant’s  counsel  has  stated  were  written  by  the  defendant. 
They  give  their  reasons — two  of  them  at  considerable  length — for 
arriving  at  this  conclusion.  Now,  it  is  your  duty  to  weigh  the  evidence 
of  these  experts,  to  see  whether  they  are  right,  because  the  prosecution 
must  satisfy  you  that  he  wrote  it.  Who  are  these  men  ?  They 
have  been  examined  before  you.  They  have  given,  to  some  extent, 
information  concerning  their  studies  and  qualifications.  They  testify, 
two  of  them  at  least,  that  they  have  devoted  comparatively  long  lives 
to  the  study  of  disputed  handwriting ;  that  they  have  examined  dis¬ 
puted  handwriting  that  has  afterwards  become  the  subject  of  litigation 
in  a  large  number  of  cases.  The  other  one  is  a  teacher  of  handwriting 
and  has  devoted  less  years,  as  indeed  he  has  seemed  to  have  lived  less 
years,  to  this  very  interesting  study.  Are  their  opinions  reliable  ?  Do 
they  satisfy  you  that  the  man  who  wrote  these  two  letters,  the  one  to 
Judge  Fitzgerald  and  the  other  to  Mrs.  Bridgham,  is  the  same  man  who 
wrote  Exhibit  No.  i  ?  They  concur  in  the  opinion  that  Exhibit  No.  i 
is  written  in  a  disguised  hand,  and  it  is  apparent  from  the  other  two 
letters,  the  one  to  Judge  Fitzgerald  and  the  other  to  Mrs.  Bridgham, 
that  they  were  written  with  a  lead-pencil,  and  with  a  free,  offhand, 
accustomed  movement,  but  they  declare  that  they  are  able,  by  certain 
tests  which  they  say  they  have  found  to  be  correct  during  their  long 
study  of  this  science,  to  identify  characters  in  this  letter  with  the  char¬ 
acters  in  the  two  letters  to  which  I  have  referred,  and  that  such  an 


PAY  OF  EXPERTS  NO  DISPARAGEMENT. 


8l 


identification  occurs  in  a  large  number  of  instances.  Bringing  down  to 
a  conclusion  the  result  of  their  long  experiences,  and  their  examinations 
of  these  letters,  they  uniformly  declare  that  they  have  no  doubt  that 
the  same  person  wrote  all  three. 

“  Now,  we  know  that  the  science  of  detecting  handwriting  is  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  study  by  men  who  engage  for  pay  in  that  pursuit.  They  expect, 
when  they  are  called  upon  in  courts  of  justice  or  elsewhere  to  make 
examinations  and  testify  concerning  them,  to  be  paid  for  it.  That  is  the 
business  of  their  lives,  as  it  is  the  business  of  life  of  a  lawyer  to  get  pay 
from  his  client  for  services,  of  a  doctor  from  his  patient,  of  a  pastor 
from  his  congregation.  Their  pay,  it  may  be  justly  said,  I  think, 
must  depend  largely  upon  the  extent  and  character  of  their  studies  and 
the  extent  and  character  of  their  qualifications  to  speak  ;  precisely  as 
one  lawyer  may  receive,  and  will  receive,  a  large  compensation  for  a 
case,  while  a  lawyer  of  less  reputation,  of  less  study,  of  lower  quali¬ 
fications,  doing  the  same  work  perhaps  equally  as  well,  can  command 
only  a  much  smaller  sum. 

“  Now,  these  men  testify  before  you  that  these  letters  were  written  by 
the  same  person.  They  say  that  they  have  no  doubt  of  it.  They 
declare  that  they  have  examined  them  critically.  They  have  brought 
to  bear  upon  it  the  experience  of  years,  and  the  principles  of  their 
science,  and  all  that  study  could  qualify  them  to  perform  with  relation 
to  it,  and  they  have  attempted  to  give  to  you,  and  have  given  to  you, 
what  they  claim  to  be  their  reasons  for  the  result  at  which  they  have 
arrived.  Are  they  right  ?  Are  you  satisfied  that  they  are  right,  beyond 
a  reasonable  doubt? 

“Mr.  Atchison  (counsel  for  defendant)  :  If  your  Honor  please,  I 
except  to  that  portion  of  your  Honor’s  charge  in  so  far  as  it  concerns 
expert  testimony  given  in  this  case.  I  respectfully  request  the  Court  to 
charge  that  direct  evidence  is  stronger  and  is  entitled  to  greater  consid¬ 
eration  than  expert  testimony. 

“  The  Court  :  That  I  decline  to  so  charge. 

“Mr.  Atchison:  I  except  to  the  refusal,  and  I  except  to  all 
refusals. 

“The  Court  :  That  is,  I  decline  to  charge  the  last  request  under 
the  circumstances  of  this  case. 

“  The  jury  retired  at  3:49  p.m.,  taking  with  them  the  exhibits,  and 
returned  into  court  at  4:18  p.m. 

“The  Court:  I  have  received,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  from  you 
this  question.  Of  course,  I  cannot  answer  any  questions  by  written 
communication.  I  have  to  bring  you  into  court  and  have  the  prisoner 
and  his  counsel  represented  and  the  District  Attorney :  —  ‘  Did  the 


82  PERSONAL  IDENTITY  PROVED  BY  HANDWRITING. 

experts  positively  swear  that  the  three  letters,  Nos.  i,  2,  and  3,  were 
written  by  the  same  person  ?  ’  They  swore  that  they  had  no  doubt  that 
they  were  written  by  the  same  person.  Ames  swears  that  they  were  — 
‘  In  my  opinion  all  three  letters  were  written  by  the  same  person.’  He 
says  there  is  no  doubt  in  his  mind.  Expert  Kinsley  testifies  to  the 
same,  and  that  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  a  doubt,  I  think,  as  he  expressed 
it,  that  the  same  person  wrote  them  all.  That  answers  your  question. 
I  have  not  undertaken  to  give  the  exact  language,  but  that  is  what  they 
said  in  substance. 

“  Mr.  Atchison  :  I  except  to  the  further  charge  that  your  Honor 
has  just  made. 

“The  Court  :  I  am  not  making  any  charge.  I  am  answering  a 
question  that  the  jurors  asked  me  as  to  what  evidence  the  experts  gave. 

“  Mr.  Atchison  :  I  except  to  the  remarks  of  the  Court  in  response 
to  the  request. 

“The  jury  retired  at  4:21,  and  returned  into  court  at  5:08,  and 
stated,  through  their  foreman,  that  they  found  the  defendant  guilty  as 
charged  in  the  indictment.’’ 

The  Case  of  Theophilus  Youngs. — It  is  probable  that 
no  case  ever  came  before  a  New  York  Surrogate  which 
attracted  more  attention  from  the  press  and  the  public  than 
did  that  of  Theophilus  Youngs,  which  was  tried  before  Sur¬ 
rogate  Delano  C.  Calvin  in  1881. 

An  application  was  made  for  the  revocation  of  letters  of 
administration  which  had  been  granted  to  Mary  I.  C. 
Youngs  on  the  goods,  chattels,  and  credits  of  Theophilus 
Youncrs,  alleged  to  be  deceased. 

The  revocation  was  opposed,  and  met  with  a  counter  alle¬ 
gation  that  Theophilus  Youngs  was  still  living;  and  to  the 
astonishment  of  the  applicants,  a  man  calling  himself  by 
that  name  appeared  in  the  court,  and  was  there  identified, 
by  his  alleged  brother  and  a  fellow  workman,  as  the 
Theophilus  Youngs  named  in  the  letters  of  administration 
and  the  application  for  revocation.  His  identification  was 
denied  by  his  wife  and  numerous  other  relatives,  each  affirm¬ 
ing  that  this  man  was  not  the  Theophilus  Youngs  they  had 
known,  and  the  same  as  was  named  in  the  letters  of  admin¬ 
istration  and  application.  Some  weeks  of  time  was  con- 


CASE  OF  THEOPHILUS  YOUNGS. 


83 


sumed  in  taking  testimony  pro  and  con,  and  yet  it  was  an 
open  question  as  to  “  who  was  Theophilus  Youngs.”  While 
upon  the  witness-stand  the  alleged  brother  was  asked  if  he 
had  any  other  means  of  proving  the  identity  of  Theophilus 
than  his  personal  recognition,  to  which  he  replied  that  he 
had  letters  which  he  had  received  from  him  since  the  time 
of  his  alleged  death,  one  of  which,  of  considerable  length, 
he  produced.  The  genuineness  of  this  letter  was  also 
denied  by  the  applicant,  whereupon  the  Surrogate  directed 
the  letter  to  be  read  to  the  claimant,  and  that  he  be  required 
to  rewrite  the  same.  When  the  original  letter  with  the 
copy  thus  made  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  writer  with 
a  request  that  he  compare  the  same  and  report  to  the  Sur¬ 
rogate  as  to  the  identity  of  the  two  writings,  on  submission 
of  his  report  with  the  analysis  of  the  writings  sustaining 
the  same,  the  identity  was  so  completely  proven  that  the 
Surrogate  at  once  decided  that  the  claimant  was  the  real 
Theophilus  Youngs. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


SOURCES  OF  EXPERT  KNOWLEDGE,  AND  WHO  MAY  GIVE  TESTI¬ 
MONY  AS  EXPERTS  —  THE  LEGAL  DEFINITION  OF  THE  WORD 
“  EXPERT.” 

All  evidence  of  handwriting,  except  where  the  witness 
has  seen  the  writing  in  question  written,  is  derived  from 
four  sources:  First — from  comparison;  second — from  the 
internal  evidence  of  the  writing  itself;  third — -from  the 
knowledge  of  the  writing,  from  having  frequently  seen  a 
person  write;  fourth  —  where  one  has  received  letters 
whose  authorship  has  been  subsequently  verified  by  admis¬ 
sion,  or  acted  upon  in  such  manner  as  to  receive  the  approval 
of  the  writer.  Comparison  is  made  between  the  writing 
in  question  and  other  writing  admitted  by  the  writer  to  be 
genuine,  or  otherwise  proved  to  be  so  to  the  satisfaction  of 
the  court. 

The  evidence  adduced  from  comparison  is  more  or  less 
certain  according  to  the  skill  of  the  expert  and  the  circum¬ 
stances  of  the  case.  Internal  evidence  is  such  as  is  presented 
by  the  peculiar  quality  of  lines  when  drawn  or  worked  up 
by  slowly  following  traced  lines,  retouched  shades,  rubbered 
surface  of  the  paper,  and  every  indication  of  an  artificial 
or  mechanical  process  of  producing  writing. 

Testimony  based  upon  a  knowledge  of  writing  gained 
from  having  at  some  time  seen  a  person  write,  is  the  most 
fallacious  of  all  testimony  respecting  handwriting;  it  can 
be  only  a  mental  comparison  of  writing  in  question  with 
such  a  vague  idea  or  mental  picture  as  may  remain  from  a 
casual  view  of  the  writing  at  some  time  more  or  less  remote  ; 


INCOMPETENT  EXPERTS. 


85 


and  besides,  one  may  perceive  another  in  the  act  of  writing 
and  yet  have  little  or  no  opportunity  of  forming  any 
mental  conception  of  it,  even  at  the  time  of  writing.  Yet 
the  writer  recalls  an  instance*  where  a  witness  was  per¬ 
mitted  to  express  his  opinion  as  to  the  genuineness  of  a 
signature  to  a  will,  involving  several  millions  of  dollars,  on 
his  mere  allegation  that  he  had  once,  twenty-six  years 
before,  seen  the  testator  write  his  name  with  a  lead-pencil 
to  a  receipt  while  sitting  in  his  carriage,  which  writing  he 
had  not  since  seen !  Such  testimony  is  a  farce  and  mockery 
of  justice  —  simply  a  bid  for  perjury. 

Where  one  has  had  a  long  and  intimate  association  with 
another  in  such  a  way  that  his  writing  has  been  a  thing  of 
daily  observation,  there  may  be  such  an  acquaintance  with 
it  as  to  render  one  competent  to  express  a  valuable  opinion 
respecting  its  identity.  Yet  no  one,  from  simple  observa¬ 
tion,  can  come  to  know  all  the  distinguishing  characteristics 
of  any  handwriting,  not  even  his  own,  as  can  a  competent 
expert  from  an  exhaustive  study  of  it. 

Indeed,  the  very  fundamental  basis  of  the  identity  of 
handwriting  is  in  the  unnoted,  and  hence  unconscious,  per¬ 
sonalities  of  one’s  writing.  A  skillful  simulation  is  as  liable 
to  deceive  the  author  of  the  writing  that  is  simulated  as  any 
other  casual  observer  having  a  general  familiarity  with  the 
writing. 

Who  May  Testify  as  an  Expert. — While  the  qualifi¬ 
cation  necessary  for  the  permission  of  a  witness  to  testify 
in  court  as  an  expert  is  largely  discretionary  with  the 
judge,  such  discretion  is  usually  exercised  with  so  great  lib¬ 
erality  that  it  is  not  often  that  a  witness  offered  as  an  expert 
is  refused  by  the  court  on  the  ground  of  deficient  qualifica¬ 
tion.  It  is  usually  held  that  any  one  possessed  of  any¬ 
thing  more  than  ordinary  opportunity  for  studying  or 
observing  handwriting  may  give  expert  testimony,  which 

*  A.  J.  Davis  will  contest,  Butte,  Montana,  in  1S91. 


86 


DEFINITION  OF  EXPERT  TESTIMONY. 


the  jury  may  receive  for  what  it  is  deemed  to  be  worth.  If 
on  any  previous  occasion  one  has  given  testimony,  that  fact 
is  usually  accepted  as  a  sufficient  qualification,  or  if  he  has 
ever  seen  the  person  write  whose  writing  is  in  question,  he 
is  deemed  competent.  With  such  limited  qualification,  it  is 
no  matter  of  surprise  that  expert  testimony  is  sometimes 
made  to  appear  at  very  great  disadvantage.  Incompetent 
and  mercenary  witnesses  will  seek  employment,  and  since 
there  are  always  two  sides  to  a  case,  and  on  each  side 
lawyers  who  spare  no  efforts  for  victory,  there  is  a  chance 
for  every  kind  of  witness,  as  there  is  for  every  kind  of 
attorney. 

Definition  of  Expert  Evidence. —  Expert  evidence 
is  that  given  by  one  especially  skilled  in  the  subject  to 
which  it  is  applicable,  concerning  information  beyond  the 
range  of  ordinary  observation  and  intelligence. 

Definition  of  Opinion  Evidence. —  Opinion  evidence 
is  the  conclusions  of  witnesses  concerning  certain  propo¬ 
sitions,  drawn  from  ascertained  or  supposed  facts,  by  those 
who  have  had  better  opportunities  than  the  ordinary 
individual  or  witness  to  judge  of  the  truth  or  falsity  of  such 
propositions,  or  who  are  familiar  with  the  subject  under 
inquiry,  and  give  their  conclusions  from  the  facts  within 
their  own  knowledge  concerning  certain  questions  involved 
in  the  issue.  In  Ordesco  Oil  Co.  v.  Gilson,  63  Pa.  St. 
146,  the  Court  observes,  “An  expert,  as  the  word  imports, 
is  one  having  had  experience.  No  clearly  defined  rule  is  to 
be  found  in  the  books  as  to  what  constitutes  an  expert. 
Much  depends  upon  the  nature  of  the  question  in  regard  to 
which  an  opinion  is  asked.”  (See  also,  for  further  definitions 
of  experts,  Page  v.  Parker,  40  N.  H.  59;  Jones  v.  Tucker, 
41  N.  H.  546;  Boardman  v.  Woodman,  47  N.  H.  134; 
Herald  v.  Thing,  45  Me.  392;  Mobile  Life  Ins.  Co.  v. 
Walker,  58  Ala.  290;  Slater  v.  Wilcox,  57  Barb.  (N.Y.)6o8.) 


WHAT  CONSTITUTES  AN  EXPERT.  8/ 

Definition  of  an  Expert. — An  expert  is  one  who 
has  made  the  subject  upon  which  he  gives  his  opinion  a 
matter  of  particular  study,  practice,  or  observation,  and 
he  must  have  a  particular  and  special  knowledge  on  the 
subject.  We  quote:  Dole  v.  Johnson,  50  N.  H.  454,  “A 
person  instructed  by  experience”;  Hyde  v.  Woolfolk,  1 
Iowa,  159,  “An  expert  is  a  person  that  possesses  peculiar 
skill  and  knowledge  upon  the  subject  matter  that  he  is 
required  to  give  an  opinion  upon”;  State  v.  Phair,  48  Vt. 
366,  “  An  expert  is  one  instructed  by  experience ;  and  to 
become  one  requires  a  course  of  previous  habit  and  prac¬ 
tice,  or  of  study,  so  as  to  be  familiar  with  the  subject”; 
Nelson  v.  Sun  Mutual  Ins.  Co.,  71  N.  Y.  453,  460,  “All 
persons,  I  think,  who  practice  a  business  or  profession 
which  requires  them  to  possess  a  certain  knowledge  of  the 
matter  in  hand,  are  experts  so  far  as  expertness  is 
required”;  Van  der  Donckt  v.  Thellusson,  8  M.  G.  &  S. 
812;  adopted  in  Bird  v.  State,  21  Gratt.  (Va.)  800,  “An 
expert  is  a  person  of  large  experience  in  any  particular 
department  of  art,  business,  or  science”;  Dickens  v.  Fitch¬ 
burg,  14  Gray  (Mass.)  546,  555.  Also,  Burrill  Herald 
v.  Thing,  45  Me.  394;  Nelson  v.  Johnson,  18  Ind.  334; 
Estate  of  Toomes,  54  Cal.  514;  Travis  v.  Brown,  43  Pa. 
St.  12.  See  Rochester  v.  Chester,  3  N.  H.  349,  365  ;  Buf- 
fum  v.  Harris,  5  R.  I.  250. 


CHAPTER  X. 


EXPERTS  SHOULD  BE  EMPLOYED  BY  THE  COURT  —  THEY  SHOULD  BE 

ABLE  TO  MAKE  PLAIN  THE  REASONS  FOR  THEIR  OPINIONS  - 

ILLUSTRATIONS  SHOULD  BE  MADE  BY  PHOTOGRAPHS,  OR  WITH 
CRAYON  UPON  BLACKBOARD  OR  PAPER. 

Probably  no  judicial  officer  in  this  country  has  a  better 
opportunity  to  observe  and  judge  of  the  value  of  expert 
testimony  than  a  surrogate  of  New  York  City.  Forged 
wills  and  cases  involving  the  question  of  the  genuineness 
of  handwriting  are  very  frequently  contested  before  him. 

In  rendering  a  decision  respecting  a  contested  will  where 
experts  had  given  testimony,  Surrogate  Calvin  expressed 
the  opinion,  that  “in  all  cases  wherein  expert  testimony  is 
required  the  expert  should  be  employed  and  paid  by  the 
court,  and  be  regarded  as  a  court  officer.” 

This  would  be  wise,  first,  in  that  it  would  tend  to  the 
employment  of  none  but  really  skilled  and  reliable  experts, 
instead  of,  as  is  now  often  the  case,  pretentious  humbugs  ; 
and  secondly ,  there  would  be  less  liability  of  partiality  or 
prejudice  in  favor  of  the  side  by  which  they  are  employed 
and  paid. 

At  present  experts  are  employed,  paid,  and  so  far  as  is 
possible  influenced,  by  the  party  in  whose  behalf  they  are  to 
testify,  and  frequently  manifest  all  the  energy  and  strategy 
of  an  attorney,  magnifying  and  distorting  facts  upon  their 
side  of  the  case,  while  they  withhold  or  belittle  every  fact 
favorable  to  the  adverse  side. 

It  should  be  the  sole  purpose  of  an  expert  to  present 
impartially  to  court  or  jury  the  entire  truth  which  he  may 


EXPERTS  SHOULD  NOT  BE  RETAINED.  89 

discover  concerning  any  question  about  which  he  is  called 
upon  to  testify  as  an  expert,  to  the  end  that  exact  justice 
may  be  done. 

No  expert  should  permit  himself  to  be  retained  in 
the  sense  in  which  an  attorney  is  retained,  viz.,  for  the 
purpose  of  making  the  most  of  and  winning  a  case,  right 
or  wrong. 

Extreme  care  and  caution  should  be  exercised  by  an 
expert,  that  any  conclusion  he  may  reach  is  well  founded. 
This  he  should  be  ready  to  show,  by  clear,  strong,  and  con¬ 
vincing  reasons.  But  should  it  at  any  time,  or  in  any  stage 
of  an  investigation,  appear  that  he  has  been  mislead  in 
his  own  investigation,  or  by  others,  and  has  made  an 
important  mistake,  he  should  not  hesitate  to  correct  the 
same,  even  though  it  involve  an  entire  change  of  opinion, 
and  necessarily  of  position  from  one  side  of  the  case  to 
the  other,  and  subject  him,  as  it  usually  does,  to  all  the 
base,  mean,  and  false  insinuations  of  treachery  or  merce¬ 
nary  motives  which  a  knavish  attorney  can  imagine  or 
invent.  An  expert  should  never  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that 
his  duty  is  that  of  an  honest,  impartial  investigator,  a 
judge  rather  than  an  advocate  ;  and  that  he  is  to  simply 
state  facts  as  they  appear  to  him,  regardless  of  their  bear¬ 
ing  upon  any  side  of  the  case  ;  he  should  know  no  client  or 
antagonist. 

When  the  services  of  an  expert  are  sought,  he  should,  so 
far  as  is  possible,  avoid  knowing  the  circumstances  or  the 
relations  of  the  party  asking  his  opinion  as  to  the  case. 
The  fee  for  the  examination  and  opinion  should,  as  a  rule, 
be  paid  in  advance,  and,  by  an  explicit  understanding,  be 
the  same  whether  the  opinion  be  favorable  or  adverse  to 
the  party  seeking  it,  and  entirely  independent  of  any  future 
service. 

The  fact  that  an  expert  has  made  an  examination  and 
given  an  adverse  opinion,  should  not  debar  him  from  giving 
testimony  upon  the  right  side  of  the  case  should  he  be 


90  EXPERTS  SHOULD  BE  CALLED  BY  THE  COURTS. 

called  upon  to  do  so;  but  when  such  is  the  case,  or  when, 
from  the  discovery  of  new  facts,  a  previously  formed  and 
expressed  opinion  is  overthrown  and  his  testimony  is  used  by 
the  adverse  party,  he  should  in  no  wise  reveal  a  fact  or  cir¬ 
cumstance  bearing  upon  the  case  which  was  made  known  to 
him  by  the  opposite  party  while  in  their  confidence  or  service. 

The  late  Judge  Pratt,  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  New 
York,  while  charging  the  jury  in  a  case  where  forgery  was 
involved,  said : — 

“When  an  expert  is  sought  to  be  employed  who  has  no  previous 
knowledge  of  the  case,  it  will  inspire  him  with  confidence  and  give  his 
evidence  great  weight  if  he  will  act  in  accordance  with  this  rule,  to  wit: 
peremptorily  refuse  to  be^  informed  upon  which  side  of  the  case  his 
services  are  required  until  a  full  statement  of  the  facts  has  been  made 
and  he  has  given  his  opinion  thereon.  He  will  then  himself  know  that 
his  opinion  is  unbiased  by  any  consideration  whatever.  If  this  rule 
should  be  adopted  as  the  settled  practice  by  medical  experts  it  would 
go  far  to  dispel  the  prejudice  that  is  oftentimes  produced  by  a  zealous 
and  partisan  manner  upon  the  witness  stand.  ’  ’ 

We  believe  that  the  above  is  the  rule,  so  far  as  is  prac¬ 
tical,  with  every  honorable  expert.  We  know  it  is  with 
most ;  but  the  bad  feature  of  the  expert  business,  as  in  all 
other  things,  is  the  fact,  that  it  is  not  without  its  hungry 
charlatans,  who,  from  knavery  or  incompetency,  seek  to 
appear  as  witnesses  only  to  guess  or  falsify  upon  either  side 
of  any  case  in  which  they  can  procure  their  employment 
and  get  a  fee.  Of  course,  such  advice  as  Judge  Pratt  offers 
is  wasted  upon  that  class  of  “  professional  ”  experts.  So 
loner  as  there  is  a  mutual  seeking  between  the  charlatan 
witness  for  a  fee,  and  attorney  to  sustain  by  any  means  a 
bad  cause,  expert  testimony  can  and  will  be  made  to  appear 
to  juries  and  the  world  as  strangely  conflicting.  It  is  this 
class  of  testimony,  knavishly  given  and  procured,  rather 
than  the  occasional  difference  of  opinion  between  skilled 
and  honest  experts  upon  evenly-balanced  cases,  which  so 
often  discredits  expert  testimony. 


EXPERTS  SHOULD  GIVE  REASONS. 


91 


Reasons  Should  Be  Given  for  Any  Opinion  Ex¬ 
pressed. —  I  cannot  conceive  of  an  opinion  worthy  of  con¬ 
sideration,  for  which  a  reason  cannot  be  given  ;  yet  we  have 
often  heard  such  opinions  given  in  court,  and  they  have  been 
accepted  as  expert  testimony.  When  asked  for  his  reason, 
one  witness,  a  bank  cashier,  replied,  “Oh!  I  am  so 
impressed;  I  cannot  tell  why.” 

It  is  scarcely  creditable  to  any  witness  to  express  opin¬ 
ions  for  which  he  can  give  no  reasons,  or  to  a  court  to  per¬ 
mit  such  to  be  given  as  expert  testimony.  For  how  can 
court  and  jury  place  the  proper  value  upon  opinions  unsup¬ 
ported  by  reasons?  Indeed,  the  value  of  expert  testimony 
consists  mainly  in  the  ability  of  the  witness,  by  reason  of 
his  special  training  and  experience,  to  point  out  to  the  court 
and  jury  such  important  facts  as  they  might  otherwise  fail 
to  observe  ;  and  in  so  doing,  the  court  and  jurors  are  enabled 
to  exercise  their  own  vision  and  judgment  respecting  the 
cogency  of  the  reasons,  and  the  consequent  value  of  the 
opinion  founded  thereon.  A  skillful  use  of  the  blackboard 
and  crayon,  as  well  as  photographs,  may  greatly  aid  in  eluci¬ 
dating  testimony  which  courts  now  almost  invariably  permit. 
In  the  absence  of  a  blackboard,  large  sheets  of  paper  may 
be  used  for  illustrations,  with  a  colored  crayon. 

Objection  has  sometimes  been  made  to  the  use  of  the 
blackboard,  on  the  allegation  that  thereby  evidence  was 
introduced  which  could  not  appear  upon  the  court  record, 
or  be  available  in  case  of  an  appeal.  The  substitution  of 
paper  for  blackboard  overcomes  this  objection,  since  the 
paper  with  the  illustrations  may  be  preserved  for  future  use. 

Great  care  should  be  exercised  that  photographs  be  cor¬ 
rectly  made.  The  first  requisites  are  that  the  writing  to  be 
copied  be  at  exact  right  angles  to  the  lens  of  the  camera, 
that  the  lens  be  adapted  to  a  perfect  reproduction  of  a  flat 
surface,  and  that  it  be  in  perfect  focus.  The  photographic 
reproduction  must  then  be  absolutely  perfect  as  to  outlines 
and  measurements.  As  to  time  of  exposure,  toning,  and 


92 


HOW  PHOTOGRAPHS  SHOULD  BE  USED. 


finishing,  these  are  dependent  upon  the  skill  and  experience 
of  the  operating  photographer. 

Photographs  may  be  used  simply  for  purposes  of  illustra¬ 
tion,  not  as  evidence,  when  the  original  writing  is  present, 

that  always  being  regarded  as  the  best  evidence.  Photo¬ 
graphs  the  same  size  as  the  original  may  be  used,  in 

which  case  there  should  be  a  sufficient  number  that  each 

two  of  the  jury  at  least  may  possess  a  copy,  and  also  one 
for  each  of  the  attorneys,  the  court,  and  the  witness  —  ten 
or  more  copies  in  all ;  or  where  the  matter  in  controversy 
will  admit,  and  especially  in  cases  of  contested  signatures, 
greatly  enlarged  photographic  copies  may  be  of  material 
aid  by  rendering  more  conspicuous  the  reasons  alleged  for 
any  opinion  expressed.  Where  signatures  alone  are  under 
consideration,  photographs  may  be  advantageously  enlarged 
to  three  or  four  feet  in  length  ;  in  which  case  they  may  be 
so  placed  that  the  expert  may  point  out  upon  them  to  the 
court  and  jury  the  specific  evidences  upon  which  he  has 
founded  his  opinion.  The  purpose  of  photographs  pre¬ 
senting  the  writing  in  its  natural  size,  in  the  hands  of  the 
court  and  jury,  is  that  they  may  thereby  follow  the  testi¬ 
mony  of  the  expert,  and  by  exercising  their  own  eyes  and 
judgment  upon  his  alleged  facts,  be  enabled  to  give  to  them 
their  true  weight  as  evidence  in  the  case,  irrespective  of 
his  expressed  opinion. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


DISGUISED  AND  IMITATED  WRITING  —  CASE  OF  EVERETT  V.  WIL¬ 
KINSON  ILLUSTRATIVE  OF  DISGUISED  WRITING 

One  of  the  most  frequent  phases  in  which  handwriting 
is  brought  into  question  is  in  various  forms  of  disguise, 
often  as  anonymous  letters.  There  are  few  communities 
that  have  not  at  some  time  been  afflicted  by  the  anonymous 
letter  fiend — letters  scurrilous,  obscene,  threatening,  black¬ 
mailing,  libelous,  etc.  Seldom,  however,  has  it  been,  where 
the  natural  writing  of  their  authors  has  been  procured  for 
comparison  by  skilled  experts  that  the  writers  have  been 
able  to  successfully  conceal  their  identity  through  any  con¬ 
siderable  composition. 

Of  course,  every  conceivable  method  is  resorted  to  for  a 
disguise.  Pen-printing,  reverse  of  slope,  change  of  pens, 
distortion  of  letters,  introduction  of  new  and  grotesque 
types  of  letters,  etc.  But  if  the  well-nigh  infinite  person¬ 
alities  that  go  to  make  up  a  natural  and  habitual  handwrit¬ 
ing,  and  the  overwhelming  power  of  acquired  habit,  which, 
as  Dryden  says,  “  is  ten  times  nature,”  are  borne  in  mind, 
the  disguise  will  be  easily  penetrated  and  the  true  character¬ 
istics  recognized. 

To  change  the  general  appearance  or  pictorial  effect 
of  writing  is  very  easy,  and  most  people  seeking  to  dis¬ 
guise  their  handwriting  commit  the  fatal  error  of  supposing 
that  when  they  have,  by  any  means,  succeeded  in  making  a 
radical  change  in  the  general  appearance  of  their  writing, 
that  the  disguise  is  complete  and  effective.  It  can  be  so 
only  to  the  unskilled  or  casual  observer,-— as  if  by  a  change 


94 


DISGUISED  VERSUS  IMITATED  WRITING. 


of  slope,  implement,  a  few  types  of  letters,  and  the  intro¬ 
duction  of  a  few  distortions,  a  lifelong  habit  of  writing, 
with  its  numberless  unconscious  details,  can  be  entirely  laid 
aside,  and  a  new  one,  alike  complicated,  substituted !  All 
who  have  struggled  for  years  to  acquire  a  handwriting, 
must  realize,  on  slight  reflection,  that  it  does  not  come,  as 
it  were,  ready-made,  in  that  way. 

With  all  the  effort  to  disguise  one’s  writing,  the  warp  and 
woof  will  continue  to  be  of  the  old  habitual  hand,  through 
which  the  identity  of  the  writer  will  be  as  inevitably  manifest 
as  he  himself  would  be  through  any  disguise  of  his  person. 

Not  long  since,  in  the  comparison  of  a  series  of  disguised 
letters  with  two  genuine  ones,  together  with  the  addresses 
upon  the  envelopes  in  which  they  were  transmitted,  it  was 
observed  that  the  habit  of  the  writer  was  to  place  a  dash  of 
some  sort  under  the  last  word  written.  This  was  found  to 
be  also  a  fact  in  the  disguised  writing.  Notwithstanding 
the  great  effort  made  to  disguise  it,  unconscious  habit 

o  o 

repeated  the  inevitable  rubric  at  the  end. 

Disguised  versus  Imitated  Writing. —  In  disguised 
writing  the  writer  seeks  to  impart  an  appearance  as  unlike 
his  own  habitual  writing  as  possible,  and  yet  have  the  dis¬ 
guised  writing  legible.  In  imitated  writing,  the  writer 
seeks  to  reproduce,  as  perfectly  as  possible,  the  habitual 
handwriting  of  another  person.  The  effort  at  disguised 
writing  fails  from  the  inability  of  the  writer  to  avoid  his 
own  unconscious  and  habitual  characteristics. 

In  imitated  writing,  the  writer  fails  from  a  twofold  cause. 
He  can  neither  avoid  all  his  own  unconscious  habits,  nor 
reproduce  all  those  of  the  imitated  writing;  nor  can  he 
assume  the  unhesitating  and  natural  facility  with  which  nat¬ 
ural  writing  is  executed.  In  forged  or  imitated  writing,  the 
more  obvious  and  conspicuous  things  become  objects  of  spe¬ 
cial  attention,  and  are  therefore  usually  unduly  emphasized, 
while  the  more  numerous  minor  peculiarities  go  unobserved 


CHANGED  IN  APPEARANCE,  NOT  IN  CHARACTER.  95 


and  are  substituted  by  those  of  the  forger.  In  disguised 
writing,  the  reverse  is  true.  The  more  conspicuous  things 
will  be  known,  and  can  therefore  be  omitted,  while  the 
multitude  of  minor  and  unknown  peculiarities  remain  to 
betray  the  identity  of  their  author. 

In  the  following  cut  is  represented,  first,  an  habitual 
handwriting  on  a  forward  slope  ;  second,  the  same  hand  with 
a  back  slope.  It  will  be  observed  that  while  there  is  an 
entire  change  in  the  pictorial  effect,  the  habitual  charac¬ 
teristics  are  identical. 


HABITUAL  HAND. 


&60  9*=. 


0  i — ■ — 
0  \irO 


Via  aA/  civH' 


n 


Cff\J  / 


'M,  ]WWvAuK  jirtfO^cLA^- 

c^Luk.  A^kUAhtk:  n  <s 


A  Case  in  Point. — The  case  of  Everett  v.  Wilkinson, 
lately  tried  in  Jersey  City,  N.  J.,  is  presented  as  a  specimen 
of  anonymous  and  disguised  letter-writing.  Both  parties 
were  well-known  practicing  physicians,  and  the  case 
attracted  widespread  attention.  A  considerable  number  of 
very  offensive  anonymous  letters  were  received  by  a  drug¬ 
gist,  reflecting  seriously  upon  the  character  and  profes- 


96 


DISGUISED  WRITING. 


sional  skill  of  one  Dr.  Everett.  Circumstances  led  Dr. 
Everett  to  attribute  their  authorship  to  a  certain  limited 
number  of  persons,  among  whom  was  Dr.  Wilkinson. 
Measures  were  taken  which  resulted  in  securing  the  writing 
of  several  suspected  parties.  These  specimens  were  sub¬ 
mitted  with  the  anonymous  letters  to  the  writer,  who 
selected  the  writing  of  Dr.  Wilkinson  as  being  the  same  as 
the  disguised  writing  of  the  anonymous  letters.  After  a 
hotly-contested  trial,  Dr.  Everett  was  awarded  damages  to 
the  amount  of  $2,500,  which  was  paid. 

In  these  cuts  are  presented  a  few  of  the  coincident  char¬ 
acteristics  presented  in  both  the  standard  and  disguised 
writing :  — 


U) 


genuine. 


cr^f  s'/  — 


*  A2-  / 

6 

/ 

y  ,  __ 


aye***- 

/ \  ^  ^<2  stJ*- 


"Ac- 


CASE  IN  POINT. 


97 


Cut  (i)  represents  a  portion  of  an  admittedly  genuine 
letter  and  cut  (2)  represents  a  portion  of  a  page  of  the 
disguised  writing  proved,  by  expert  testimony,  to  have  been 
written  by  the  same  person. 

Respecting  cuts  (1)  and  (2),  we  consider  first  the 
mechanical  arrangements  of  the  writing.  There  were 
involved  in  the  case  three  genuine  letters  and  four  in  a  dis¬ 
guised  hand.  In  all  instances  the  letters  commence  with 
the  date  located  at  the  extreme  top  and  right ;  marginal 
arrangements  were  the  same.  It  will  be  observed  that 
instead  of  dividing  words  at  the  right  margins  with  a 
hyphen,  they  frequently  extend  downward  on  the  extreme 
edge  of  the  paper.  Comparing  the  writing  of  (1)  and  (2), 
observing  first  the  crossings  of  the  7’s,  which  are  curved 
shaded  lines  near  the  top  of  the  letter.  An  example  is  in 
(1),  line  7,  and  (2),  line  3.  Note  the  letter  w  in  (1), 
lines  3,  7,  9,  and  10,  as  compared  with  corresponding  letters 
in  (2),  lines  4  and  6;  also  the  letter  b  in  (1),  lines  3  and  9, 
has  a  round,  full  bulb,  finishing  with  a  large  loop ;  corre¬ 
sponding  letters  in  (2),  lines  3  and  6.  The  letter  h  in  (1), 


/ 

a 


D ISGUISED . 


l&'Tl 


3  <S(>,'$iLne2*Lia.uir€ 
4/LAn.  flleyCctj /h  a.  v-* 


5 

6 


^  tvctfc/le. 

*  cya. ^ cCs hi (Z ) 


98  HABITUAL  AND  DISGUISED  FORMS  IN  CONTRAST. 


lines  i,  4,  7,  and  9,  up-stroke  beginning  at  base  line  con¬ 
necting  with  staff  at  top;  corresponding  letters  in  (2),  lines 
3,  4,  and  6.  The  letter  r  at  the  beginning  of  the  word  in 
(1),  line  4,  is  conspicuously  large,  beginning  with  a  com¬ 
pound  curve  at  the  base  line  ;  the  same  letter  is  in  (2),  lines 
4  and  8.  The  interrogation  point  in  (1),  at  the  end  of  line 
10,  is  the  same  as  those  of  (2),  in  lines  7  and  8.  The  word 
“  the  ”  in  (1),  line  7,  is  characteristically  the  same  as  “  the  ” 
in  (2),  line  6. 

These  are  but  few  of  the  many  coincident  characteristics 
that  are  present  in  the  three  genuine  letters  as  compared 
with  the  four  disguised. 


( 3 )  From  Genuine. 


1  Cl 

2  %  f  Z  ft* 

•  -  - 


2  2?  ?  >1' 
•  •  •  •  t  9 


In  cuts  (3)  and  (4)  are  collected  and  placed  in  juxtaposi¬ 
tion  several  examples  of  the  more  striking  personalities  as 
they  appear  in  the  genuine  and  disguised  writing.  In  cut 
(3)  are  two  kinds  of  J's.  One  made  with  two  separate 
strokes,  and  another  with  one  continuous  stroke.  At  the 
very  beginning  of  the  disguised  letter,  cut  (2),  in  the  first 
line,  is  a  J  made  with  two  strokes,  while  in  the  second  line 
it  is  made  continuously. 


HABITUAL  AND  DISGUISED  FORMS  IN  CONTRAST.  99 

Two  different  characteristic  types  of  the  same  letter  in 
two  alleged  different  writings  count  very  much  in  expert 
examinations,  because,  while  it  is  not  uncommon  that  two 
different  persons  fall  into  the  habit  of  making  one  form  of 
a  letter  approximately  the  same,  it  is  very  uncommon  that 
they  should  each  develop  two  highly  personal  forms  alike 
for  the  same  letter  or  combination. 

In  line  2  of  cut  (3)  are  several  capital  D' s  selected  from 
the  genuine  writing ;  opposite  are  several  selected  from  the 
disguised  writing,  and  so  on  to  the  end  of  the  cut.  It  will 
be  found  that  the  letters  and  words  selected  from  the  genu¬ 
ine  writing  are  characteristically  the  same ;  yet  while  inter¬ 
mingled  in  the  page  of  disguised  writing  their  identity  is  so 
changed  and  obscured  as  not  to  be  discernible  except  on 
close  scrutiny  and  comparison. 

In  their  pictorial  effect  there  is  no  observable  resemblance 
between  the  genuine  and  the  disguised  writing  more  than 
between  a  white  and  a  black  man,  yet  mainly  on  expert  tes¬ 
timony  the  identity  of  the  anonymous  writing  was  so  very 
thoroughly  demonstrated  as  to  secure  a  large  verdict  as 
damages  against  the  author  for  criminal  libel. 

o  o 


CHAPTER  XII. 


CERTAINTY  OF  CONCLUSIONS  REACHED  THROUGH  EXPERT  COMPARI¬ 
SONS  OF  WRITING  —  MUST  VARY  IN  DEGREE,  WITH  THE 
CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  EACH  CASE  —  THE  GENUINENESS  OR  UNGEN¬ 
UINENESS  OF  WRITING  IS  NOT  DETERMINED  BY  ANY  ONE 
THING,  BUT  BY  A  SERIES  OF  INSTANCES  WHERE  THE  TRUE 
CHARACTERISTICS  ARE  PRESENT  OR  ABSENT,  AS  THE  CASE  MAY 
BE—  EXAMPLES  :  A  BANK  CASE  IN  NEW  YORK,  AND  THE  BIRD 
CASE,  LOS  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA. 

Where  a  handwriting  is  brought  into  question,  it  is  rare 
that  any  one  thing  can  determine  the  point  at  issue.  It  is 
usually  by  a  more  or  less  extended  series  of  things,  the 
presence  or  absence  of  which  creates  the  decisive  prepon¬ 
derance  of  evidence. 

Of  course,  each  case  admits  of  a  more  or  less  certain  con¬ 
clusion,  according  to  its  own  peculiar  circumstances.  It 
often  happens  that  there  is  such  a  deficiency  in  the  char¬ 
acter  or  extent  of  the  writing,  either  of  the  known  or 
unknown,  as  not  to  furnish  a  satisfactory  basis  for  study 
and  comparison ;  that  is  to  say,  there  are  present  too 
few  of  the  real  characteristics  of  either  one  or  both  of 
the  writings  to  enable  even  a  skilled  expert  to  form  a 
well-sustained  opinion.  Only  a  word,  or  paragraph,  care¬ 
lessly  scrawled  perhaps  with  a  pencil,  may  be  brought 
in  question,  to  be  compared  with  other  writing  with 
pen  and  ink.  Again,  a  long  period  of  time  may  inter¬ 
vene  between  the  date  of  the  writings  which  are  to  be 
compared,  in  which  the  standard  writing  may  have 
undergone  material  change,  and  sometimes  the  skill 


ILLUSTRATED  BY  PERSONAL  PECULIARITIES. 


IOI 


of  the  forger  is  so  great  as  to  nearly  baffle  that  of 
the  expert.  These  circumstances,  however,  are  the  ex¬ 
ception. 

Some  handwritings  are  characterized  by  few  or  no  striking 
peculiarities  that  radically  distinguish  them  from  one 
another,  and  may  be  casually  mistaken  in  their  identity, 
while  other  writings  consist  of  a  continuous  series  of 
extravagant  eccentricities  such  as  to  cause  them  to  stand 
out  as  grotesque,  unique,  and  unmistakable  among  other 
writings  as  would  a  dime  museum  freak  among  other 
persons. 

It  follows  that  the  personality  of  some  handwritings,  like 
some  physiognomies,  is  more  marked  and  unmistakable 
than  that  of  others,  and  the  more  rare  and  excep¬ 
tional  are  the  characteristics  either  of  the  person  or  of 
the  writing,  the  less  liable  are  accidental  coincidences 
between  them  and  others,  or  that  any  mistake  can  occur 
respecting  their  own  identity.  As  these  peculiarities  mul¬ 
tiply,  either  as  to  writing  or  the  person,  the  chance  of  their 
recurrence  in  another  diminishes  on  a  ratio  far  beyond  the 
simple  law  of  permutation.  Suppose,  for  example,  that 
among  ten  thousand  persons  there  is  one  hunchback,  one 
person  minus  a  right  leg,  one  person  minus  a  left  arm,  one 
person  with  one  eye,  one  person  with  a  broken  nose.  To 
find  one  person  having  two  of  these  peculiarities  would 
require  probably  one  hundred  thousand  people  ;  three  of 
them,  a  hundred  millions ;  four ,  a  thousand  millions,  while 
one  having  all  five  might  not  be  found  in  the  entire  fourteen 
hundred  million  people  on  earth.  While  it  cannot  be  posi¬ 
tively  alleged  that  no  one  person  can  possibly  possess  all 
these  peculiarities,  the  improbability  is  so  great  as  to 
invade  the  realm  of  the  impossible.  Precisely  so  it  is  in 
the  comparison  of  a  handwriting. 

As  we  have  said,  one  peculiarity  does  not  decide.  It 
simply  counts  for  what  it  may  be  worth  ;  two  count  not  twice 
as  much,  but  many  fold  more,  and  so  on.  By  each  added 


102 


THE  THROWING  OF  DICE. 


peculiarity  the  strength  of  the  evidence  is  multiplied  far 
beyond  the  rule  of  geometrical  progression  ;  and  although 
a  point  may  not  be  reached  where  it  can  be  said  that  all  of 
a  series  of  like  or  different  characteristics,  as  the  case  may 
be,  could  not  possibly  occur,  the  probabilities  for  or  against 
the  accidental  recurrence  of  all  the  series  is  such  as  to  jus¬ 
tify  decisive  judgment.  Again,  the  degree  of  certainty 
may  be  likened  to  the  throwing  of  dice.  Double  aces  may 
be  thrown  once  without  comment.  Thrown  twice  in  suc¬ 
cession,  there  is  an  exclamation  of  surprise.  Thrown  three 
times,  Whew  !  Thrown  four  times,  By  Jove!  Thrown  five 
times,  comes  a  shout  of  fraud,  loaded  dice,  etc.  Yet  who 
can  say  it  is  impossible  that  double  aces  might  not  be  thrown 
the  fifth  consecutive  time;  and  having  been  thrown  five 
times,  w'hy  not  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  so  on  indefinitely? 
Yet  who  would  not  soon  act  decisively  on  the  improba¬ 
bility  ? 

It  is  sometimes  alleged  in  disparagement  of  conclusions 
reached  from  comparison  of  handwriting  that  no  one  can 
be  absolutely  certain  of  anything  he  has  not  seen.  If  one 
sees  the  track  of  a  horse,  he  knows  that  it  was  made  by  a 
horse  and  not  by  a  dog.  We  do  not  see  the  earth  revolv¬ 
ing  upon  its  axis,  but  we  know  it  does  revolve.  Indeed, 
eliminate  from  the  knowledge  of  the  world  all  that  of  which 
we  can  have  no  visual  perception,  and  only  a  skeleton  of 
what  the  world  accepts  and  constantly  acts  upon  would 
remain. 

Illustrative  of  the  foregoing  we  herewith  present  a  num¬ 
ber  of  facsimile  signatures.  The  top  one  is  the  forgery  ; 
the  three  following  are  the  genuine  standards  used  for 
comparison.  The  characteristic  differences  are  indicated  by 
numerals  along  the  disputed  signature,  the  series  extending 
from  one  to  thirty. 

The  case  which  is  presented  by  the  accompanying  exhibit 
was  tried  some  years  ago  in  New  York.  The  First 
National  Bank  of  New  York  brought  suit  against  the  First 


CASE  ILLUSTRATIVE  OF  PROFESSIONAL  FORGERY.  IO3 

National  Bank  of  Trenton,  N.  J.,  to  recover  nearly  five 
thousand  dollars,  on  a  draft  having  the  disputed  signature. 
The  plaintiffs  alleged  its  genuineness  and  produced  several 
bank  cashiers  and  presidents,  who  testified  accordingly, 
while  the  Trenton  bank  officials  defended  on  the  o-round  of 

o 

forgery.  Strong  circumstantial  evidence  tended  to  estab¬ 
lish  the  genuineness  of  the  signature,  while  expert  testi¬ 
mony  against  its  genuineness  was  nearly  unsupported,  but 
the  verdict  was  very  properly  for  the  defense. 


F  OaGEO . 


104 


ANALYSIS  OF  WRITING. 


1.  The  heavily  shaded  and  nearly  closed  initial  hook 
in  place  of  one  open  and  unshaded  or  absent  in  the 
genuine. 

2.  The  more  straight  parallel  lines  forming  a  thinner  loop 
to  the  C. 

3.  The  lower,  heavier,  and  better  graduated  shade  in  the 
down  stroke  of  the  C. 

4.  The  more  symmetrical  main  oval  of  the  C. 

5.  The  differently  formed  and  unshaded  inner  oval. 

6.  The  shortened  stroke  ol  the  IV  with  a  sharp  closed 
angle  at  the  top. 

7.  The  long,  large  blind  loop  at  the  bottom. 

8.  The  very  round,  full  turn  at  the  top  of  the  last  turn 
in  the  IV,  and  also  its  heavy  shade  and  elevation  above  the 

base  line. 

✓ 

9.  The  final,  conspicuous,  nice,  artistic,  angular  finish 
to  the  IV,  which  strikes  the  staff  of  the  h  below  the  up¬ 
line  that  forms  the  loop,  showing  a  break  in  the  up-line  of 
the  loop. 

10.  In  the  disproportionate  height  of  the  h  to  that  in 
genuine  signature. 

1 1.  The  parallel  lines  in  loop  of  h. 

12.  The  more  heavily  shaded  and  lifted  staff  of  the  h  at 
its  base. 

1  1.  The  larger,  more  rounded  second  member  of  the  h, 
and  its  high  closing  on  the  staff 

14.  The  very  large  i  and  round  turn  to  the  base. 

15.  The  formed  loop  of  the  t  from  a  very  short  turn  at 
its  top,  a  sharply  curved  down-stroke  crossing  the  up-stroke 
low  down  toward  the  base  of  the  whole  letter,  above  the 
base  line. 

16.  The  thin  line  and  full  loop  of  the  e  lines  crossing 
close  to  its  base  and  above  the  base  line. 

17.  The  disproportionate  height  of  the  t,  e,  and  h. 

18.  The  horizontality  of  the  connecting  line  from  e  to 
the  h  and  the  wide  space  between  the  letters. 


CONTROVERTED  BY  A  PLAUSIBLE  FALLACY.  IO5 

19.  The  peculiar  parallelism. of  the  top  of  the  h  and  the 
shortness  of  its  staff. 

20.  The  peculiar  obtuse  angle  and  artistic  and  retouched 
shade  in  the  finish  of  the  h. 

21.  The  peculiar  manner  in  which  the  h  connects  into 
the  t  by  a  horizontal  curve  above  the  base  of  the  e. 

22.  The  conspicuous  size  of  the  loop  of  the  e. 

23.  The  very  long  turn  connecting  e  to  a. 

24.  The  small  double-looped  a. 

25.  The  horizontal  connection  of  the  a  into  the  d. 

26.  The  up-line  of  the  d,  which  changes  its  direction  on 
the  staff  of  the  d,  showing  that  the  pen  was  lifted  at  the 
point. 

27.  The  very  large  symmetrical  loop  for  the  staff  of  the  d. 

28.  The  conspicuous  and  artistic  shade  of  the  down- 
stroke  of  the  d. 

29.  The  very  large  symmetrical  oval  formed  by  the  ter¬ 
minal  sweep  of  the  d. 

30.  The  long-extended,  horizontal,  and  elevated  terminal 
of  the  d. 

In  addition  to  evidence  adduced  from  the  analysis  as  here 
given,  were  manifest  under  the  microscope  several  instances 
where  the  forger,  having  failed  in  his  first  writing  to  pro¬ 
duce  the  desired  form  of  shade,  had  retouched  the  lines  in 
a  manner  unnecessary  to,  and  inconsistent  with,  genuine 
writing.  Any  legible  form  serves  the  purpose  of  genuine 
writing,  but  not  so  to  the  forger,  intent  on  reproducing  an 
exact  model. 

It  is  often  sought,  on  a  cross-examination  of  an  expert, 
to  overthrow  the  conclusion  reached  by  such  a  comparison 
as  is  here  represented,  when  there  is  a  sufficient  range  of 
standard  writing,  by  searching  it  for  exceptional  forms 
which  approximate  to  one  of  those  pointed  out  in  the  com¬ 
parison,  and  if  one  or  more  is  found,  it  is  argued  that  the 
conclusions  reached  from  the  comparison  are  thereby  over- 


io6 


THE  BIRD  CASE. 


thrown.  The  fallacy  of  this  is  illustrated  by  the  supposition 
of  the  peculiarities  of  five  persons  being  all  present  in  one 
person,  or  in  the  dice-throwing,  as  if  out  of  a  hundred 
throws,  all  those  of  double  aces  should  be  counted  as  so 
many  consecutive  throws.  The  thing  is  to  find  present  in 
any  one  known  genuine  signature  all  or  any  considerable 
portion  of  the  exceptional  peculiarities  present  in  the  single 
one  in  contest. 

The  Bird  Case. — Bird  was  convicted  of  forgery  at  Los 
Angeles  in  July,  1899.  The  trial  attracted  considerable 
attention  from  the  press  and  the  public.  Bird  was  the 
private  secretary  of  G.  J.  Griffith,  an  extensive  and  wealthy 
real-estate  holder  and  dealer,  and  had  the  full  confidence 
of  his  employer,  being  intrusted  with  the  entire  charge  of 
the  affairs  of  his  office,  as  bookkeeper  and  cashier.  Before 
detection,  Bird  had  forged  Griffith’s  name  to  checks  aggre¬ 
gating  several  thousand  dollars,  on  which  he  had  received 
the  cash  from  the  First  National  Bank  of  Los  Angeles, 
where  Griffith  kept  his  account.  Bird  was  well  known 
at  the  bank  where,  as  Griffith’s  secretary,  he  frequently 
made  deposits  and  procured  cash  on  Griffith’s  checks. 
The  forgery  was  written  free-hand,  and  in  its  general 
pictorial  effect  was  a  very  close  simulation  of  Griffith’s 
genuine  signature;  but  as  is  inevitable  to  a  free-hand  ior- 
gery,  certain  peculiarities  in  forms  of  letters,  their  combi¬ 
nation  and  shade,  were  overlooked  by  the  forger,  and  his 
own  unconscious  habit  was  injected  into  their  places. 
Griffith  threw  out  the  checks,  chiefly  from  his  knowledge 
of  not  having  signed  checks  for  such  amounts  in  favor 
of  Bird  at  the  time  of  their  dates.  The  suspected 
signatures  were  submitted  to  A.  \Y.  Seaver,  a  well- 
known  local  expert,  who  decided  them  to  be  forgeries. 
Bird  was  indicted  and  brought  to  trial.  He  was  ably 
defended  by  Ex-Judge  Dillon  of  Los  Angeles.  The  trial 
continued  over  two  weeks.  He  had  a  powerful  ally  in  the 


ILLUSTRATIVE  OF  FREE-HAND  FORGERY.  107 

bank  which  had  cashed  the  forged  checks,  for  there  was 
pending  a  civil  suit  brought  by  Griffith  against  the  bank  for 
the  recovery  of  the  amount  of  the  forged  checks.  It  was 
alleged  by  Griffith  that  the  aggregation  of  the  forgeries  was 
far  greater  than  the  amount  of  the  checks  which  came  into 
Griffith’s  possession,  as  Bird,  while  acting  as  secretary, 
received  all  the  returned  checks  from  the  bank,  and  thus 
had  opportunity  to  destroy  any  that  he  had  forged.  At  the 
trial  the  writer  was  called  by  the  District  Attorney  to  give 
testimony  in  the  case.  Herewith  are  presented  cuts  of  five 
of  the  forged  signatures,  with  an  equal  number  of  genuine. 
Along  the  first  forged  signature  we  have  placed  numerals 
from  1  to  16,  indicating  as  many  of  the  leading  failures  of 
the  forgeries  to  present  the  proper  characteristics  of  the 
genuine  signatures.  Photographs  were  placed  in  the  hands 
of  each  of  the  jury,  while  their  differences  were  pointed  out 
and  illustrated  upon  a  blackboard,  thus  enabling  the  jury  to 
exercise  their  own  vision  and  judgment  as  to  the  truthful¬ 
ness  and  value  of  the  reasons  presented  to  sustain  the 
expert’s  opinion  that  the  signatures  were  forgeries. 

1  calls  attention  to  the  more  formal  and  horizontal  start 
of  a  more  curved  up-stroke  to  the  G. 

2  notes  the  more  round,  shaded,  horizontal,  and  symmet¬ 
rical  turn  at  the  center  of  the  G. 

3  notes  the  more  angular  and  heavy  shades  at  the  top  of 
the/. 

4  notes  the  larger,  more  symmetrical  lower  loop  to  the  /. 

5  notes  the  more  extended  and  symmetrical  upper  loop 
to  the  G. 

6  notes  a  right  curve  at  the  top  of  the  second  member  of 
the  G,  which  is  the  reverse  of  the  genuine. 

7  and  8,  taken  together,  represent  the  ri  in  such  form 
and  relation  as  to  form  a  letter  u,  while  in  the  genuine  it 
would  be  yi. 

9  represents  a  low,  round,  dishing  shade  at  the  bottom  of 
the  ff. 


io8 


ANALYSIS  OF  WRITING. 


io  and  1 1  represent  a  heavy  shaded  right  curve  as  an 
initial  to  the  which  letter  is  in  the  form  of  an  e  as  against 
an  i  with  a  straight  unshaded  initial,  while  the  letter  has  an 
open  angle  at  the  top. 


ANALYSIS,  CONTINUED. 


109 


1 2  represents  a  t  with  a  closed  or  looped  staff,  as  against 
an  open  and  pointed  staff  in  the  genuine. 

13  represents  the  very  round,  shaded  turns  at  the  base 
of  the  i  and  t. 

14  notes  the  sharp  turn  at  the  base  of  the  last  part  of 
the  letter  h ,  which  sweeps  upward  and  back  so  as  to  serve 
as  a  cross  to  the  t.  The  terminal  and  last  stroke  of  the  h 
presenting  the  form  of  lo  as  against  the  broad  turn  at  the 
base  and  high  sweep  in  the  genuine. 

15  refers  to  the  punctuation  points,  which  in  the  forgeries 
are  conspicuously  large,  and  are  on  or  above  the  base  line, 
while  they  are  smaller  and  below  the  base  line  in  the 
genuine. 

16  notes  the  large,  high  dots  to  the  z’s  as  against  the 
smaller  and  lower-down  dots  in  the  genuine. 

Many  other  minor  differences  were  pointed  out  to  the 
jury. 

As  was  stated  by  the  expert  to  the  jury,  while  no  one  of 
these  variances  might  be  sufficient  to  sustain  the  allegation 
of  forgery,  such  a  long  series  of  variances  from  Mr.  Grif¬ 
fith’s  habit  of  writing,  with  marked  uniformity  running 
through  a  number  of  disputed  signatures,  constituted  the 
most  conclusive  proof  of  forgery. 

Taken  as  groups,  the  forgeries  are  as  consistent  as  a 
family  as  are  the  genuine,  but  no  one  of  the  signatures  in 
either  group  could  be  a  consistent  member  of  the  other 
family. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


WHY  EXPERTS  DIFFER  IN  THEIR  OPINIONS — NOT  ALL  WHO  GIVE 
TESTIMONY  AS  EXPERTS  ARE  QUALIFIED  TO  DO  SO — OFTEN 
THROUGH  THE  SEEKING  OF  ATTORNEYS,  INCOMPETENT  OR  MER¬ 
CENARY  WITNESSES  ARE  EMPLOYED  AS  EXPERTS  TO  DISPARAGE 
THE  TESTIMONY  OF  SKILLED  AND  HONEST  EXPERTS. 

Not  infrequently  it  is  pointed  out,  with  a  view  to  dis¬ 
parage  expert  evidence,  that  experts  radically  disagree  in 
their  testimony, —  one  appearing  on  one  side  of  a  case  and 
one  on  another, —  and  from  this  it  is  argued  that  such  tes¬ 
timony  is  of  slight  value.  A  moment’s  serious  considera¬ 
tion  of  this  contention  should  be  sufficient  to  establish  its 
unfairness,  and  the  absurdity  of  the  point  of  view.  In  the 
first  place  there  are  experts  and  “experts.” 

“  As  hounds  and  greyhounds,  mongrels,  spaniels,  and  curs, 
cleped  all  by  the  name  of  dogs.” 

The  court  has  a  right  to  pass  upon  the  qualifications  of 
an  expert  witness,  and  very  properly  decides  such  questions 
with  the  broadest  possible  latitude.  A  man  who  has 
devoted  a  long  life  to  the  scientific  investigation  of  a  par¬ 
ticular  subject  is  permitted  to  testify  as  an  expert  precisely 
upon  the  same  plane  as  a  man  who  can  swear  that  he  is 
familiar  with  a  particular  signature  by  reason  of  having 
observed  it  a  few  times  on  a  bank  check.  Apart  from  this, 
it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  that  the  inducement  for  dis¬ 
honest  testimony  in  cases  Involving  large  sums  of  money 
(as  a  large  proportion  of  forgery  cases  do)  often  consti¬ 
tutes  a  very  seductive  bait  to  alleged  “experts  ”  with  more 
or  less  elastic  consciences. 

But  wholly  apart  from  any  consideration  of  mercenary 


WHY  EXPERTS  OPPOSE  EACH  OTHER. 


I  I  I 


motive,  impropriety,  or  ignorance,  is  it  in  any  measure 
unreasonable  that  on  any  conceivable  question  of  fact  men 
who  are  both  skillful  and  honest  are  liable  to  disagree  on 
one  or  another  point?  In  most  cases,  where  expert  hand¬ 
writing  testimony  plays  an  important  part,  it  is  practicable 
to  produce  genuine  and  undisputed  handwriting  in  amount 
sufficient  to  afford  a  proper  comparison  on  all  or  practically 
all  the  important  points  involved.  In  such  cases,  assuming 
both  skill  and  honesty,  there  is  really  no  ground  for  radical 
differences  of  opinion  in  expert  testimony.  Yet  there  are 
cases  in  which  it  is  difficult,  or  it  may  be  impossible,  to 
secure  proper  standards  of  comparison — -cases  where  the 
forgery  appertains  to  a  single  signature,  or  even  a  single 
word,  and  it  may  be  that  the  forger  is  not  even  suspected. 
Assuming  these  conditions,  and  adding  to  them  a  superior 
degree  of  skill  on  the  part  of  the  forger,  there  is  presented 
a  case  that,  while  it  may  not  actually  deceive  the  expert, 
may  render  it  very  difficult  for  him  to  seize  enough  impor¬ 
tant  points  to  make  his  exposition  conclusive  to  the  lay  minds 
of  a  jury.  Indeed,  such  cases  may  present  points  pro  and 
con  so  delicate  and  shadowy  in  their  nature  that  men  of 
fairly  equal  skill  may  differ  in  their  conclusions  with  respect 
to  them.  But  who  shall  lay  this  up  as  an  argument  against 
the  worth  of  expert  testimony?  There  is  no  calling  in  life, 
however  intellectual  or  advanced  or  profoundly  scientific, 
in  which  men  of  undoubted  integrity  do  not  differ  some¬ 
what,  not  only  in  opinions,  but  on  questions  of  pure  fact. 
Eye-witnesses  to  ordinary  occurrences,  people  whose 
veracity  is  beyond  reproach,  often  differ  as  to  exact  details 
as  to  what  took  place. 

To  make  my  contention  in  this  matter  absolutely  clear, 
we  will  take  it  for  granted  that  a  man  would  recognize  an 
intimate  friend  when  meeting  him  on  the  street.  This  he 
does  not  only  by  a  likeness  of  his  friend  (which  includes  his 
carriage  and  gestures),  but  also  by  the  apparel  which  has 
become  identified  with  him.  Now,  if  the  friend  should 


I  12 


AN  ILLUSTRATIVE  EXAMPLE. 


radically  change  his  style  of  apparel  —  say,  from  the  usual 
dress  of  an  American  citizen  to  the  national  costume  of  a 
Turk  or  Hindoo  —  he  would  be  identified  with  much  less 
readiness,  and  it  is  not  at  all  improbable  that  he  might  be 
passed  on  the  street  without  recognition.  In  other  words, 
many  of  the  points  of  identification  would  have  been  con¬ 
cealed  ;  yet  a  fair,  square  look  at  the  face  would  doubtless 
penetrate  even  this  disguise. 

Now,  suppose  that  instead  of  meeting  this  friend  face  to 
face  on  the  street,  he  should  be  seen  in  this  disguise  at  a 
distance  of  one  or  two  blocks  or  more.  The  probability  of 
identification  would  be  greatly  lessened.  Even  at  a  dis¬ 
tance  beyond  the  point  where  a  glance  at  his  familiar 
features  might  dispel  the  masquerade,  it  is  quite  conceivable 
that  some  habit  of  gait  or  gesture  might  betray  the  real 
identity.  But  after  all  there  comes  a  point  of  remoteness 
where  neither  appearance  nor  gesture  would  be  sufficiently 
marked  to  tell  any  definite  story  —  a  point  where  distance 
would  obliterate  familiar  lines  and  where  even  without  any 
unusual  disguise  no  man  could  swear  with  positiveness  that 
the  one  seen  was  his  friend. 

It  sometimes  happens,  also,  that  experts  disagree  because 
of  circumstances  shaped  by  designing  and  tricky  attorneys. 
A  case  in  point  was  where  the  question  at  issue  was  as  to 
the  identity  of  five  entries  of  alleged  fictitious  names,  with 
residence,  upon  a  hotel  register.  An  expert  was  called  to 
prove  the  identity  of  this  writing  by  comparison  with  known 
writing.  For  this  purpose  he  used  for  standards  several 
long  letters  and  superscriptions  upon  envelopes,  which  pre¬ 
sented  material  in  extent  and  kind  sufficient  to  enable  an 
expert  to  gain  a  full  understanding  of  the  practical  habit 
of  the  writer.  Obviously,  this  was  precisely  the  kind  of 
material  proper  for  comparison  with  that  in  question,  in  the 
form  of  a  fictitious  name  and  address,  which  bore  little  evi¬ 
dence  of  attempt  to  disguise,  it  being  freely  written  ;  while, 
upon  the  other  hand,  experts  were  called  to  deny  this 


OFTEN  THE  FAULT  OF  ATTORNEYS. 


TI3 


identity  from  a  comparison  of  the  fictitious  entries  in 
disguised  writing  simply  with  business  autographs  of  the 
alleged  writer  signed  upon  checks.  In  the  range  of 
writing  presented  upon  the  one  hand  was  every  letter  and 
combination,  many  times  over,  that  was  represented  in 
the  fictitious  names  and  address,  while  the  check  signa¬ 
ture  was  not  only  monagrammic  in  its  character,  but  pre¬ 
sented  few  of  the  letters  and  none  of  the  combinations 
presented  in  the  writing  in  question,  and  hence  failed 
to  present  adequate  and  proper  material  for  compari¬ 
son,  and  any  expert  forming  an  opinion  from  such  a  com¬ 
parison  would  be  very  likely  to  be  in  error,  as  proved  to  be 
the  fact  in  this  case,  from  subsequent  admissions  of  the 
person  charged  with  the  writing. 

Another,  and  the  most  frequent  cause  of  contradictory 
opinions  of  experts,  is  found  in  the  persistent  effort  of 
over-zealous  or  mercenary  attorneys.  There  have  been 
few  instances  where  skilled  and  honest  experts  have  been 
called  to  sustain  a  just  cause,  that  opposing  attorneys  have 
not  persistently  sought  some  one  or  more  persons,  usually 
as  many  or  more  than  are  called  on  the  adverse  side, 
who  can  qualify  before  the  court  as  experts  to  contradict 
the  testimony  given  by  those  employed’upon  the  other  side, 
and  frequently,  in  desperate  cases,  the  more  mercenary, 
incompetent,  and  ridiculous  these  witnesses  may  be  made  to 
appear,  the  better  they  serve  the  purpose  for  which  they 
were  called,  namely,  the  bringing  of  the  whole  idea  of  the 
expert  testimony  under  ridicule  and  contempt,  and  thus 
destroy  that  which  tends  to  reveal  the  truth,  from  which 
crime  can  never  profit.  And  then,  with  ridicule  and 
epithets,  the  attorney  appeals  to  the  jury  against  this  nefar¬ 
ious  sort  of  testimony  ;  here,  “  as  you  gentlemen  of  the  jury 
can  plainly  see,”  is  one  set  of  hired  experts  who  say  it  is, 
and  another  set,  with  equal  positiveness,  say  it  isn’t.  What 
is  such  testimony  worth  ? 

It  often  happens  that  persons  are  permitted  to  testify  as 


TRICKS  OF  ATTORNEYS. 


I  14 

experts  who  are  without  valid  claims  to  being  experts. 
Because  a  man  is  a  writing-master,  an  artist,  an  engraver, 
or  a  bank-teller,  does  not  by  any  means  make  him  an  adept 
in  discovering  and  explaining  forgery.  And  the  assumption 
that  ail  these  classes  of  persons  are  experts,  and  permitting 
them  to  qualify  as  such,  is  responsible  for  much  of  the 
unfavorable  comments  by  courts  and  the  press  upon  the 
uncertain  and  contradictory  character  of  expert  testimony. 

It  is  a  trite  saying  among  the  legal  fraternity  that  “an 
attorney  with  no  case  ”  abuses  the  witness.  Especially  are 
expert  witnesses  the  object  of  their  wrath  in  desperate 
cases.  By  denouncing  experts  as  hired  perjurers  who  tes¬ 
tify  for  pay,  etc.,  unscrupulous  attorneys  frequently  endeavor 
to  divert  the  jury’s  attention  from  the  real  points  at  issue 
and  to  create  prejudice  that  will  operate  in  their  favor.  Of 
course,  it  behooves  the  witness  to  preserve  an  unruffled 
demeanor ;  and  if  he  conducts  himselt  properly,  in  nine 
cases  out  of  ten,  the  unwarranted  attack  upon  him  will 
prove  a  boomerang  to  the  attorney.  It  is  well  to  remem¬ 
ber,  too,  in  this  connection  that  the  lawyer  with  a  bad  case 
has  no  use  for  a  skilled  and  truthful  expert. 

Another  trick  often  resorted  to  by  unscrupulous  attorneys 
in  charge  of  a  case  that  has  been  riddled  by  expert  testi¬ 
mony,  is  to  introduce  in  rebuttal  one  or  more  alleged 
experts  to  swear  just  the  other  way.  P'or  this  purpose, 
“  any  old  witness  ”  wfflo  can  possibly  qualify  by  reason  of 
having  taught  writing-school,  or  having  seen  the  principal 
in  the  case  actually  write,  or  having  handled  his  writing,  is 
a  good  enough  witness,  and  the  more  of  that  sort  they  can 
introduce  the  better  it  serves  their  purpose — -the  obvious 
aim  being  to  perplex  the  jury,  and  discredit  expert  testi¬ 
mony.  Granted  an  intelligent  lawyer  on  the  other  side, 
however,  with  even  an  ordinarily  intelligent  jury,  and 
efforts  of  this  kind  are  not  likely  to  cause  a  miscarriage  of 
justice. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


INSERTED  SHEETS  IN  DOCUMENTS  —  ADDED  OR  CHANGED  ENTRIES 
IN  BOOKS  OF  ACCOUNTS  — INK  AND  PENCIL  ERASURES — -IDEN¬ 
TIFICATION  OF  TYPEWRITING. 

It  is  not  an  uncommon  occurrence  that  wills  and  other 
public  documents  are  changed  by  the  insertion  of  extra  or 
substituted  pages,  thereby  changing  the  character  of  the 
instrument.  Where  this  is  suspected  careful  inspection  of 
the  paper  should  be  made — first ,  as  to  its  shade  of  color 
and  fiber,  under  a  microscope ;  second ,  as  to  its  ruling ; 
third ,  as  to  its  water-mark ;  fourth ,  as  to  any  indications 
that  the  sheets  have  been  separated  since  their  original 
attachment;  fifth ,  as  to  the  writing  —  whether  or  not  it 
bears  the  harmonious  character  of  the  continuous  writing, 
with  the  same  pen  and  ink,  and  coincident  circumstances,  or 
if  type-written,  whether  or  not  by  the  same  operator  or  the 
same  machine.  It  would  be  a  remarkable  fact  if  such  change 

o 

were  to  be  made  without  betraying  some  tangible  proof  in 
some  one  or  more  of  the  above  enumerated  respects. 

Books  of  accounts  are  often  changed  by  adding  fictitious 
or  fraudulent  entries  in  such  spaces  as  may  have  been  left 
between  the  regular  entries  or  at  the  bottom  of  the  pages 
where  there  is  vacant  space.  Where  such  entries  are  sus¬ 
pected,  there  should  be  at  first  a  careful  inspection  of  the 
writing  as  to  its  general  harmony  with  that  which  precedes 
and  follows,  as  to  its  size,  slope,  spacing,  ink  and  pen  used, 
and  if  in  a  book  of  original  entry,  the  suspected  entry 
should  be  traced  through  other  books,  to  see  if  it  is  prop¬ 
erly  entered  as  to  time  and  place,  or  vice  versa.  I  f  a  sus- 


ALTERED  BOOKS  OF  ACCOUNT. 


I  16 

picious  entry  is  found  in  a  book  of  subsequent  entry,  it 
should  be  traced  and  verified  in  every  respect  through  the 
books  of  previous  entry.  Such  an  examination  will  rarely 
fail  to  determine  the  integrity  or  otherwise  of  any  suspected 
entry.  The  writing  of  such  entries  is  likely  to  differ  from 
the  adjacent  writing  in  size,  slope,  spacing,  facility,  and 
shade  of  ink. 

When  books  are  fraudulently  made  up,  many  entries,  and 
even  pages,  are  likely  to  be  written  continuously  at  one 
writing  without  the  customary  change  of  pen  and  ink  or 
their  change  of  condition  ;  and  hence  the  constantly  vary¬ 
ing  conditions  and  circumstances  of  the  writer,  which  must 
be  manifest  as  between  entries  written  from  time  to  time 
according  to  the  exigencies  of  business,  will  not  appear. 
The  books,  too,  will  not  show  the  soil  and  wear  and  tear 
necessarily  incident  to  the  constant  and  frequent  handling 
in  making  daily  entries  and  the  frequent  references  neces¬ 
sary  in  business.  Suspected  books  skillfully  examined  upon 
the  above-mentioned  points  must  certainly  betray  unmis¬ 
takable  evidence  ot  fraud  if  it  exists. 

Ink  and  Pencil  Erasures. —  It  is  probable  that  ink 
erasures  are  more  frequently  made  with  a  sharp  steel  scraper 
and  ink-erasing  sand  rubber  than  otherwise.  By  these 
methods  the  evidence  is — first ,  the  removal  of  the  luster 
or  mill-finish  from  the  surface  of  the  paper ;  second,  the  dis¬ 
turbance  of  the  fiber  of  the  paper,  manifest  under  a  micro¬ 
scope  ;  third,  if  written  over,  the  ink  will  run  or  spread 
more  or  less  in  the  paper,  presenting  a  heavier  appearance, 
and  the  edges  of  the  lines  will  be  less  sharply  defined ; 
fourth ,  if  erasure  is  made  on  ruled  paper,  the  base-line  will 
be  broken  or  destroyed  over  the  scraped  or  rubbed  surface  ; 
fifth,  the  paper,  since  it  has  been  more  or  less  reduced  in 
thickness  where  the  erasure  has  been  made,  when  held  to 
the  light  will  show  more  or  less  transparency.  When  era¬ 
sures  have  been  thus  made,  the  surface  of  the  paper  may 


INK  AND  PENCIL  ERASURES. 


II  7 


be  resized  and  polished,  by  applying  white  glue,  and  rub¬ 
bing  it  over  with  a  burnisher.  When  thus  treated  it  may 
be  again  written  over  without  difficulty.  When  erasures 
have  been  made  with  acids,  there  is  a  removal  of  the  gloss, 
or  mill-finish ;  and  there  is  also  more  or  less  discolora¬ 
tion  of  the  paper,  which  will  vary  according  to  the  kind 
of  paper,  ink,  and  acid  used,  and  the  skill  with  which 
it  has  been  applied.  If  the  acid-treated  surface  is  again 
written  over,  the  writing  will  present  a  more  or  less  ragged 
and  heavy  appearance,  if  the  paper  has  not  been  first  skill¬ 
fully  resized  and  burnished.  It  is  very  seldom  that  writing 
can  be  changed  by  erasure  so  as  not  to  leave  sufficient 
traces  to  lead  to  detection  and  demonstration  through  a 
skillful  examination. 

Upon  hard  uncalendered  paper  erasures  by  acid  when 
skillfully  made  are  not  conspicuously  manifest,  nor  when 
made  upon  any  hard  paper  which  has  been  “  wet  down  ”  for 
printing,  since  the  luster  upon  the  paper  would  be  thereby 
removed,  and,  so  far  as  the  surface  of  the  paper  is  con¬ 
cerned,  there  would  be  no  further  change  from  the  applica¬ 
tion  of  the  acid.  This  applies  to  a  wide  range  of  printed 
blank  business  and  professional  forms. 

Identification  of  Typewriting. — Since  typewriting  has 
come  so  generally  into  use,  the  question  often  arises  as  to 
the  identity  of  writing  by  different  operators  as  well  as  that 
done  on  different  machines.  This  may  usually  be  done 
with  considerable  degree  of  certainty.  Different  operators 
have  their  own  peculiar  methods,  which  differ  widely  in 
many  respects, —  in  the  mechanical  arrangement,  as  to  loca¬ 
tion  of  date,  address,  margins,  punctuation,  spacing,  sign¬ 
ing,  as  well  as  impression  from  touch,  etc. 

The  distinctive  character  of  the  writing  done  on  different 
machines  is  usually  determined  with  absolute  certainty. 
With  most  machines  there  are  accidental  variations  in  alien- 
ment.  Certain  letters  from  use  become  more  or  less 


I  1 8  IDENTITY  OF  TYPEWRITING. 

imperfect,  or  become  filled  or  fouled  with  ink.  It  is  highly 
improbable  that  any  one  even  of  these  accidents  should 
occur  in  precisely  the  same  way  upon  two  machines,  and 
that  any  two  or  more  should  do  so  is  well-nigh  impossible. 
It  is  equally  certain  that  all  the  habits  and  mannerisms  of 
two  operators  would  not  be  precisely  the  same.  A  careful 
comparison  of  different  typewritings  in  these  respects  can¬ 
not  fail  to  determine  whether  they  are  written  by  the  same 
operator  or  upon  the  same  machine.  It  should  be  remem¬ 
bered  that  writing  upon  the  same  machine  will  differ  in  all 
the  respects  mentioned  at  different  stages  of  its  use  and 
condition. 


CHAPTER  XV. 


THE  FREQUENCY  OF  FORGERY  —  LARGELY  AGAINST  ESTATES— SEV¬ 
ERAL  INGENIOUS  AND  INTERESTING  CASES  CITED  AND  ILLUS¬ 
TRATED - THE  FULLER  CASE,  IN  NEWPORT,  VERMONT — THE 

MISER  RUSSELL  CASE,  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY - A  FORGED  NOTE 

AGAINST  THE  JACOB  ERWIN  ESTATE,  JERSEY  CITY,  N.  J.  — 
FORGED  NOTES  AGAINST  THE  GILLESPIE  ESTATE,  WARSAW,  N.  Y. 

Few  persons  outside  of  the  legal  fraternity  are  aware  of 
the  frequency  with  which  litigations  arise  from  one  or 
another  of  the  many  phases  of  disputed  handwriting ; 
doubtless  most  frequently  from  that  of  signatures  to  the 
various  forms  of  commercial  obligations  or  other  instru¬ 
ments  conveying  title  to  property,  such  as  notes,  checks, 
drafts,  deeds,  wills,  etc.  To  a  less  extent  the  disputed 
portions  involve  alterations  of  books  of  account  and  other 
writings,  by  erasure,  addition,  interlineation,  etc.,  while 
sometimes  the  trouble  comes  in  the  form  of  disguised  or 
simulated  writings.  A  disproportionately  large  number  of 
these  cases  arise  from  forged  and  fictitious  claims  against 
the  estates  of  deceased  people.  This  results,  first,  from 
the  fact  that  such  claims  are  more  easily  established,  as 
there  is  usually  no  one  by  whom  they  can  be  directly  con¬ 
tradicted  ;  and  secondly,  for  the  reason  that  administrators 
are  less  liable  to  exercise  the  highest  degree  of  caution  than 
are  persons  who  pay  out  their  own  money.  Over  eighteen 
hundred  cases  of  questioned  writing  in  its  various  phases 
have  come  under  the  inspection  of  the  writer  within  the 
past  thirty  years,  and  over  twelve  hundred  have  been  liti¬ 
gated  in  courts  of  justice.  I  n  some  instances  these  claims  rest 


I  20 


FREQUENCY  OF  FORGERY  AGAINST  ESTATES. 


upon  the  alleged  genuineness  of  a  single  signature  ;  in  others, 
where  it  was  necessary  to  show  some  peculiar  consideration 
for  the  claim,  whole  series  of  papers  and  letters  have  been 
forged,  sometimes  simply  in  the  disguised  hand  of  the  forger, 
then  again  in  the  simulated  style  of  other  persons. 

In  one  case  with  which  the  writer  is  familiar  a  note  for 
$10,000  was  presented  against  the  estate  of  a  wealthy 
bachelor  by  a  widow,  who  alleged  that  the  note  had  been 
given  in  consideration  of  her  marriage  engagement  with 
the  deceased,  which  only  failed  of  consummation  through 
his  unexpected  death.  In  vindication  of  her  claim  she  pro¬ 
duced  numerous  letters,  couched  in  terms  of  endearment, 
which  she  alleged  she  had  received  from  him  prior  to  and 
during  their  engagement.  These  letters,  all  but  two  of 
which  related  to  purely  business  transactions,  were  demon¬ 
strated  by  experts  to  have  been  forged  simulations  of  his 
writing  by  the  claimant,  as  was  the  signature  to  the  note, 
the  body  being  confessedly  in  her  own  writing. 

As  another  instance,  a  woman  presented  a  claim  for  some 
$30,000  against  the  estate  of  a  millionaire,  for  money 
alleged  to  have  been  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  deceased 
some  years  before  for  investment  and  safe-keeping.  As 
vouchers  for  her  claim  she  produced  a  receipt  and  contract, 
alleged  to  have  been  drawn  by  her  lately  deceased  attorney, 
and  signed  by  the  testator,  setting  forth  explicitly  the  terms 
of  payment  of  principal  and  interest.  The  executors  of 
the  estate  also  received  through  the  mail  a  long  series  of 
letters,  purporting  to  have  been  written  by  several  different 
unknown  parties,  tending  to  support  this  claim  against  the 
estate.  The  receipt,  contract,  and  all  the  letters,  together 
with  several  letters  admittedly  written  by  the  claimant,  were 
placed  in  the  hands  of  the  writer  for  examination  and  com¬ 
parison,  when  it  was  demonstrated  that  every  line  of  the  writ¬ 
ing  in  the  letters,  receipt,  and  contract,  as  well  as  their  signa¬ 
tures,  were  written  by  the  claimant  in  a  forged  or  disguised 
hand,  and  that  the  whole  claim  was  a  very  skillful  fabrication. 


TIIE  FULLER  CASE. 


I  2  1 


It  transpired  from  the  testimony  in  the  case  that  the 
claimant  had  for  quite  a  period  of  her  life  been  a  profes¬ 
sional  teacher  of  writing,  and  that  subsequently  she  gained 
a  livelihood  by  writing  novels.  Thus  the  romancer  and 
artist  conspired  in  a  most  ingenious  scheme  of  forgery. 

In  all  instances  where  a  forgery  extends  to  the  manufac¬ 
turing  of  any  considerable  piece  of  writing,  it  is  certain  of 
being  detected  and  demonstrated  when  subjected  to  a 
skilled  expert  examination ;  but  where  forgery  is  confined 
to  a  single  signature,  and  that  perhaps  of  such  a  character 
as  to  be  easily  simulated,  detection  is  ofttimes  difficult,  and 
expert  demonstrations  less  certain  or  convincing.  Yet  it  is 
the  writer’s  experience  that  the  instances  are  rare  in  which 
the  forger  of  even  a  signature  does  not  leave  some  uncon¬ 
scious  traces  that  will  betray  him  to  the  real  expert,  while 
in  most  instances  forgery  will  be  at  once  so  apparent  to  an 
expert  as  to  admit  of  a  demonstration  more  trustworthy 
and  convincing  to  court  and  jury  than  is  the  testimony  of 
witnesses  to  alleged  facts,  who  may  be  deceived,  or  even 
lie.  The  unconscious  tracks  of  the  forger,  however,  cannot 
be  bribed  or  made  to  lie,  and  they  often  speak  in  a  language 
so  unmistakable  as  to  utterly  defy  controversion. 

Such  a  case  was  that  of  the  forgery  against  the  estate  of 
Warren  Fuller,  tried  not  long  ago  at  Newport,  Vermont, 
where  a  paper  had  been  presented  to  the  executors  of  an 
estate  purporting  to  be  signed  by  the  testator,  in  which  he 
promised  to  pay  several  obligations,  of  some  twenty-five 
years’  standing,  and  which  were  long  since  then  barred  by 
the  Statute  of  Limitations.  This  paper  was  alleged  to  have 
been  signed  by  the  testator  only  a  short  time  before  his 
death.  The  claim  was  disallowed  by  the  executors  on  the 
ground  that  it  had  been  paid,  and  also  from  a  disbelief  in 
the  genuineness  of  the  signature  it  bore.  The  claimant 
appealed  from  the  decision  of  the  executors,  and  the  case 
was  tried  in  the  County  Court.  That  the  reader  may  bet¬ 
ter  appreciate  the  appended  synopsis  of  the  court  proceed- 


12  2 


THE  FULLER  CASE. 


ings,  compiled  from  the  report  of  the  Newport  Express- 
Stclndard  of  February  15th,  we  reproduce  the  signature  to 
the  renewal  paper,  together  with  three  other  admittedly 
genuine  signatures,  which  were  used  as  standards  for  com¬ 
parison. 


It  was  set  up  in  behalf  of  the  plaintiff  that  the  paper  in 
dispute  was  signed  in  the  public  office  of  the  American 
House,  Montpelier,  Vt.,  on  the  fifth  day  of  June,  1884,  in 
the  presence  of  numerous  witnesses. 

J.  W.  Smith  testified  that  he  was  present  on  this  occa¬ 
sion.  Fuller  spoke  to  him,  and  said  :  “  I  am  doing  what 
few  men  would.  I  am  renewing  some  obligations  which 
Henry  and  I  have  carelessly  allowed  to  outlaw.”  Fuller 
immediately  sat  down,  and  reading  over  a  paper  which  was 
handed  him  by  Rowell,  the  plaintiff,  signed  it.  Witness 
noticed  the  paper  at  the  time,  and  fully  identified  the  docu¬ 
ment  in  dispute  as  the  same. 

James  M.  Kent,  a  writing-teacher  for  more  than  ten 
years,  corroborated  Smith  on  every  point.  He  had  for 
years  lived  at  the  American  House,  and  had  frequently 
acted  as  clerk,  heading  the  hotel  register.  A  circumstance 


STRONG  DIRECT  TESTIMONY. 


I23 


that  helped  to  fix  the  date  of  the  signing  in  his  mind  was 
that  on  the  day  in  question  (June  5,  1884,)  the  plaintiff 
Rowell  called  his  attention  to  an  error  in  the  register  head¬ 
ing, —  it  appearing  June  5,  1885,  instead  of  1884, —  where¬ 
upon  witness  altered  the  figure.  (The  register  being  put 
in  evidence  showed  that  the  alteration  had  been  made.) 
Witness  saw  Rowell  write  a  paper  on  this  occasion  and 
hand  it  to  Warren  Fuller,  who,  having  read  it  over,  affixed 
his  signature  and  returned  it.  He  examined  the  paper  in 
dispute  and  identified  Fuller’s  signature.  He  also  pro¬ 
duced  his  private  diary,  in  which  the  last  entry,  under  date 
of  June  5,  1884,  was  “Saw  Warren  Fuller,”  etc. 

A.  J.  Burnham  testified  to  substantially  the  same  state  of 
facts,  positively  identifying  the  paper  in  question.  In  the 
same  line  was  the  testimony  of  Joseph  D.  Clogston  and  L. 
L.  Durant,  a  lawyer,  who  had  done  business  for  Rowell. 
Both  of  them  clearly  remembered  seeing  the  paper  written 
and  signed  in  the  office  of  the  American  House,  as  testified 
to  by  other  witnesses. 

Besides  these  five  witnesses,  swearing  positively  to  having 
seen  a  paper  written  by  Rowell  and  signed  by  Fuller,  at  a 
certain  time  and  place  (which  paper  they  fully  identified  in 
the  document  upon  which  the  suit  was  brought)  the  plain¬ 
tiff  introduced  several  other  witnesses  who  testified  that 
they  had  heard  Fuller  say  he  intended  making  such  a  paper 
to  Rowell,  and  to  other  facts  tending  to  corroborate  the 
plaintiff’s  claim. 

Against  this  mass  of  direct  testimony,  three  witnesses 
took  the  stand  for  the  defense,  to  say  that  they  had  been 
with  Warren  Fuller  on  the  day  of  the  alleged  signing,  and 
did  not  know  of  his  going  to  the  American  House.  The 
possibility  of  Fuller’s  having  gone  to  the  hotel  and  executed 
the  paper  in  question  without  the  knowledge  of  these  wit¬ 
nesses  was  fully  established  on  cross-examination. 

A  book  known  as  the  “  Marble-Book,”  containing  con¬ 
secutive  acounts  of  Fuller’s  business  as  a  marble-worker 


124 


IMPEACHED  BY  AN  INK  TEST. 


from  1870  to  1884,  in  his  own  hand,  was  introduced  to 

establish  the  character  of  his  handwriting-.  Other  witnesses 

<_> 

familiar  with  Fuller’s  writing  were  called  to  establish  the 
genuineness  of  certain  signatures,  to  be  used  as  standards. 

Kent,  the  writing-master,  had  sworn  that  the  signature 
and  papers  were  written  with  the  same  ink  as  the  entries 
upon  the  hotel  register.  A  chemical  test  made  by  the 
author  of  this  book  in  the  presence  of  the  court  and  jury 
determined  the  inks  to  be  very  different.  Under  the  test 
one  ink  was  removed,  the  other  simply  turned  red.  Kent 
had  lied.  By  referring  to  the  foregoing  cut,  it  will  be 
observed  that  the  IV  and  F  in  the  questioned  signature  are 
quite  different  from  those  in  the  standard  signatures.  By 
reference  to  the  daily  entries  in  Fuller’s  writing  in  the 
“  Marble-Book,”  during  the  previous  fourteen  years,  it 
appeared  that  some  ten  years  prior  to  the  date  of  the  paper  in 
suit  Mr.  Fuller  habitually  made  letters  of  that  type.  It  also 
appeared  by  Rowell’s  testimony  that  it  was  about  that  time 
that  the  obligations  alleged  to  have  been  renewed  were  con- 
tractecl,  and  that  Rowell  had  become  possessed  of  Fuller’s 
signature.  By  the  expert  comparison  it  was  shown  that  the 
signature  in  question  was  not  only  a  forgery,  but  that 
Rowell  had  unwittingly  used  for  a  copy  a  signature  written 
by  Fuller  fourteen  years  prior  to  the  alleged  signing  of  the 
renewal  paper ;  and  furthermore,  that  the  questioned  signa¬ 
ture  was  forged  by  Rowell.  By  again  referring  to  it  in  the 
cut  herewith  presented  it  will  be  observed  that  the  final 
strokes  of  the  n  and  r  sweep  far  below  the  base-line.  In  a 
large  number  of  Fuller’s  genuine  signatures  and  hundreds 
of  pages  of  his  writing  in  the  “  Marble-Book,”  no  final 
strokes  swept  below  the  base-line,  while  in  the  renewal 
paper,  confessedly  written  by  Rowell,  they  were  frequent. 

The  jury  immediately  rendered  a  verdict  for  the  defense, 
and  pronounced  the  signature  in  question  to  be  a  forgery. 
All  the  principal  witnesses  and  Rowell  were  indicted, 
Rowell  for  forgery  and  perjury,  and  the  others  for  perjury. 


CONCLUSIVENESS  OF  EXPERT  EVIDENCE. 


1  25 


Durant,  the  lawyer  who  was  supposed  to  have  concocted 
the  scheme,  was  found  dead  in  his  room  the  morning  of  the 
day  set  for  his  trial,  supposedly  a  suicide.  The  others, 
through  haws  in  the  indictments  and  other  technicalities, 
escaped  trial. 

The  Erwin  Case. — Another  interesting  and  important 
case  was  that  of  a  forged  note  for  $4,000  against  the  estate 
of  Jacob  Erwin,  which  was  tried  before  Vice-Chancellor 
Van  Fleet,  at  Jersey  City.  The  note  was  presented  to  the 
executor  by  a  woman  who  alleged  that  it  had  been  pre¬ 
sented  to  her  by  Mr.  Erwin  just  prior  to  his  death.  On 
being  disallowed  by  the  executor,  suit  was  brought  for  its 
collection.  When  submitted  by  the  executor  to  the  writer 
for  examination,  he  pronounced  the  signature  to  be  a  for¬ 
gery,  the  body  of  the  note  being  confessedly  in  the  hand¬ 
writing  of  the  claimant.  It  was  observed  that  while  the 
alleged  signature  bore  a  close  resemblance  in  form  to  Mr. 
Erwin’s  genuine  writing,  it  was  not  a  good  imitation  of  his 
signature.  Besides,  in  its  drawn,  hesitating,  and  tremulous 
lines  it  did  not  properly  represent  his  ordinary  and  natural 
facility  of  movement. 

D  uring  the  trial  the  attorney  for  the  claimant  put  into 
the  case,  as  a  standard  for  comparison,  a  receipt,  the  body 
of  which  was  written  by  Mr.  Erwin,  and  which  had  been  in 
possession  of  the  claimant.  In  the  body  of  the  receipt 
Mr.  Erwin  had  written  his  name  not  as  a  signature,  but  as 
body-writing.  On  inspecting  this  writing,  it  was  at  once 
apparent  to  the  expert  that  the  name  as  written  in  the 
receipt  had  been  used  as  a  copy  for  the  forged  signature  to 
the  note,  and  had  been  transferred  by  a  tracing,  thus  giving 
an  outline  so  perfect  that,  when  superimposed  one  upon  the 
other,  one  outline  only  was  visible.  The  forger  evidently 
did  not  know,  or  had  overlooked,  the  well-known  fact  that 
with  nearly  all  writers  an  autograph,  from  its  more  fre¬ 
quent  writing  and  for  a  special  purpose,  becomes  more  spe- 


126 


AUTOGRAPH  VERSUS  BODY  WRITING. 


cialized  and  monogrammic  in  its  character  than  are  the 
same  words  when  written  merely  as  body-writing. 

These  facts  were  made  so  apparent  by  the  expert  that 
the  Chancellor,  turning  to  the  plaintiff’s  attorney,  said, 
“  Do  you  desire  to  continue  this  case  further?  ”  The  attor¬ 
ney  replied  that  he  did  not,  whereupon  the  Chancellor 
immediately  pronounced  the  signature  a  forgery. 


TWO  LINES  FROM  THE  RECEIPT,  FROM  THE  BODY  OF  WHICH  THE  SIGNATURE  TO 
THE  LINES  WAS  TRACED. 


FORGED. 


Miser  Russell  Case. — Another  and  more  recent  case 
was- that  of  Miser  Russell,  who  was  for  many  years  a 
printer  in  New  York,  and  at  the  time  of  his  death  left  about 
$30,000  deposited  in  various  savings  banks.  He  was 
known  among  his  friends  as  a  bachelor,  and  he  had  fre¬ 
quently  said  he  had  no  relatives  living.  So  far  as  his  friends 
and  acquaintances  knew,  this  was  the  fact;  but  immediately 
upon  his  death,  a  lawyer  appeared  representing  a  woman 
residing-  in  Michigan,  who  laid  claim  to  Russell’s  estate  on 
the  ground  of  being  his  daughter.  To  sustain  this  claim 
she  produced  several  letters  which  she  alleged  she  had 
received  from  him  at  intervals  during  several  years  and  one 
just  previous  to  his  death,  which  were  addressed  to  her  as 
“  My  Dear  Daughter." 

These  letters  were  submitted  to  the  writer  tor  compari¬ 
son  with  the  genuine  writing  of  Mr  Russell,  to  ascertain 


A  CLEVER  SCHEME  OVERDONE. 


I27 


whether  or  not  he  had  written  them.  They  were  pro¬ 
nounced  and  proven  to  be  forgeries,  thus  disapproving  the 
claim,  and  the  $30,000  went  into  the  public  treasury,  as  is 
the  case  of  estates  left  by  persons  who  are  without  heirs. 

A  Clever  Scheme. — Some  three  years  since  the  writer 
was  called  to  Warsaw,  in  the  western  part  of  New  York 
State,  to  examine  several  notes  which  had  been  presented 
to  the  executors  of  a  large  estate,  under  circumstances  that 
had  awakened  suspicion  as  to  their  genuineness.  Upon  a 
careful  examination  and  comparison  of  the  handwriting  in 
the  body  and  signatures  of  the  notes  with  that  of  the  tes¬ 
tator,  it  was  very  apparent  that  the  notes  in  question  were 
forgeries.  The  circumstances  attending  the  discovery  and 
presentation  of  the  notes  were  indeed  romantic.  It  seems 
that  the  testator,  who  had  been  a  farmer  and  speculator, 
left  an  estate  valued  at  about  $200,000.  The  nearest  of 
kin  were  nephews  and  nieces,  among  whom,  after  leaving 
several  legacies,  the  estate  by  the  will  was  to  be  divided 
equally. 

For  many  years  there  had  been  employed  as  housekeeper 
by  the  testator  a  bright  young  woman  who  had  frequently 
been  called  upon  by  him  to  do  writing  and  not  unfrequently 
at  his  request  to  sign  papers  for  him.  There  was  also  a 
hired  man  upon  the  farm,  who  finally  married  the  young 
woman,  both  continuing  to  be  servants  of  the  testator  until 
his  death,  and  to  each  of  whom  he  willed  $1,000,  besides 
$500  to  each  of  their  several  children.  It  would  seem  that 
the  entire  family  had  become,  as  it  were,  pets  of  the  old 
gentleman.  Time  passed  on,  and  some  two  years  after  the 
decease  of  the  testator  the  husband  called  upon  the  execu¬ 
tors  and  presented  a  note  for  quite  a  sum  of  money,  alleg¬ 
ing  as  his  reason  for  its  possession,  that  just  previous  to 
the  testator’s  death,  he  and  his  wife  being  present,  the  old 
gentleman  handed  him  a  sealed  envelope,  saying:  “John, 
take  good  care  of  this,  and  do  not  open  it  until  after  I  am 


A  PLAUSIBLE  STORY. 


I  28 

dead,  when  it  may  be  of  great  service  to  you.”  He  took 
the  envelope  home  and  placed  it  in  his  bureau  drawer,  with 
other  valuable  papers,  where  it  lay  until  the  fact  of  its  pos¬ 
session  passed  out  of  his  mind. 

A  few  months  previous  to  the  discovery  of  the  note  he 
said  his  house  was  entered  and  robbed  by  burglars,  and 
that  shortly  after  the  robbery  he  found  lying  in  his  front 
room,  near  the  window,  several  valuable  papers,  among 
which  was  this  note,  also  a  letter  purporting  to  have 
been  written  by  the  burglars,  which  said,  “  These  papers 
are  of  no  value  to  us ;  we  therefore  return  them,  as  they 
may  be  of  use  to  you,”  signed  “The  Burglar.”  The  papers 
had,  as  he  supposed,  been  shoved  into  the  room  by  raising 
the  window  from  the  outside.  It  then  occurred  to  him 
that  this  note  was  a  part  of  the  contents  of  the  envelope 
which  had  been  presented  to  him  by  the  testator.  These 
circumstances,  appearing  so  plausible,  the  note  was  at  once 
allowed  and  paid  by  the  executors. 

A  few  days  afterward  the  man  called  w'ith  another  note, 
which  he  said  his  children  had  found  under  the  edge  of  the 
house,  near  the  window  through  which  the  returned  papers 
had  been  put.  He  supposed  that  this  note  had  acciden¬ 
tally  in  the  darkness  dropped  from  the  hand  of  the  burglar 
to  the  ground  instead  of  going  through  the  window  as  was 
intended,  and  that  the  wind  had  blown  it  under  the  edge 
of  the  house,  where  it  had  lain  until  found.  That  story 
also  appearing  plausible,  and  the  note  appearing  to  be  in  the 
genuine  handwriting  of  the  testator,  it  was  allowed  by  the 
executors.  Shortly  after  this  he  presented  a  note  for  a 
much  larger  sum,  which  he  said  the  children  had  found 
under  the  edge  of  the  horse-barn.  This,  he  said,  he  sup¬ 
posed  had  dropped  accidentally  and  the  wind  had  blown  it 
to  the  place  where  it  was  found.  The  third  being  for  a 
larger  sum,  caused  the  executors  to  hesitate  and  take  counsel 
before  its  payment.  It  was  at  this  time  that  the  notes 
which  had  been  paid,  together  with  the  one  which  had  been 


A  PLAUSIBLE  STORY. 


I  29 


presented,  were  submitted  to  the  writer.  The  payment  of 
the  third  note  was  declined  and  suit  was  brought  for  its 
collection,  when  the  demonstration  of  the  forgery  to  court 
and  jury  was  so  complete  that  a  verdict  of  forgery  was 
almost  instantly  rendered,  not  only  as  to  the  notes  in  suit, 
but  those  which  had  been  paid.  The  parties  therefore  not 
only  failed  in  their  claim  upon  the  third  note,  but  also  were 
compelled  to  return  the  money  which  had  already  been  paid 
on  the  previous  ones.  These  notes  with  the  interest  aggre¬ 
gated  about  $13,000. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


THE  LEWIS  WILL  CONTEST,  HOBOKEN,  N.  J. — FORGERIES  AGAINST 
THE  ESTATE  OF  JAMES  G.  FAIR,  SAN  FRANCISCO,  CAL.  —  FORGED 
WILL  OF  A.  J.  DAVIS,  OF  BUTTE,  MONTANA  —  FORGED  CHECK 
AND  NOTE  AGAINST  THE  DODGE  ESTATE,  PLYMOUTH,  N.  H.  — 
FORGED  DEED,  KINGSTON,  N.  Y.  —  BAKER  WILL  CONTEST, 
TORONTO  —  GORDON  WILL  CONTEST,  JERSEY  CITY,  N.  J. — 

forgery  against  the  redfield  estate,  Syracuse,  n.  y.  — 

THE  MURDOCK  ALLEGED  FORGERY,  WILLOWS,  CAL. -  THE 

MOREY-GARFIELD  FORGED  LETTER— CADET  WHITTAKER  CASE, 
WEST  POINT  —  COLLUM  -  BLAISDELL  ALLEGED  FORGERY,  MINNE¬ 
APOLIS —  BOTKIN  MURDER  CASE,  SAN  FRANCISCO  —  DR.  KENNEDY 
MURDER  CASE,  NEW  YORK - HUNTER- LONG  FORGERY,  PHILA¬ 

DELPHIA —  BECKER  RAISED  DRAFT,  SAN  FRANCISCO. 

The  Lewis  Will  Contest. —  It  is  probable  that  no 
legal  contest  in  this  country  during  the  last  decade,  in 
which  the  genuineness  of  handwriting  has  been  called  in 
question,  has  attracted  more  attention  than  did  the  “  Lewis 
Will  Case,”  which  began  in  the  courts  of  Jersey  City, 
N.  J.,  in  1877,  antl  ended  in  the  United  States  Court  at 
Trenton,  N.  J.,  in  March,  1880,  with  the  conviction  and 
imprisonment  of  six  persons  who,  in  various  capacities,  had 
been  engaged  in  the  conspiracy. 

Joseph  T.  Lewis,  a  miserly  old  mulatto,  died  at  Hoboken, 
N.  J.,  in  1877,  aged  upward  of  eighty-seven  years,  leaving 
a  will  by  which,  after  specifying  several  comparatively  small 
legacies,  he  bequeathed  the  residue  of  his  estate  (amount¬ 
ing  to  over  a  million  of  dollars)  to  the  United  States,  to  be 
applied  to  the  payment  of  the  national  debt.  So  far  as  was 
known  at  the  time  of  his  decease,  he  was  a  bachelor,  and 


lewis’s  personal  peculiarities.  I  31 

had  no  near  relative  in  this  country  —  he  being  a  native  of 
Jamaica,  West  Indies.  Little  has  been  made  known  of 
Mr.  Lewis’s  life,  or  how  he  amassed  his  great  fortune, 
except  that  he  began  life  as  an  engineer,  and  afterward 
made  shrewd  and  successful  investments  in  Wall  Street. 
From  a  sketch  of  his  life,  published  in  the  New  York  Sun 
during  the  will  contest,  we  abstract  the  following  incidents 
illustrative  of  his  eccentric  habits  of  life : — 

“He  dressed  in  well-fitting  clothes,  and  was  scrupulously  neat.  In 
one  hand  he  carried  a  cane.  Under  his  left  arm  was  invariably  a  black 
umbrella  on  fine  days  in  winter,  and  a  yellow  one  in  moderate  summer 
weather.  A  flower  usually  decked  his  buttonhole  in  summer.  He 
seems  to  have  had  a  few  intimate  friends,  among  them  the  gentlemen 
he  named  as  his  executors,  and  Herman  Batjer  of  New  York,  and  Gen¬ 
eral  Hatfield,  a  resident  of  Hoboken  ;  but  he  was  a  mystery  to  them  all. 
His  conversation  showed  that  he  had  traveled  in  Europe  and  in  South 
America.  He  displayed  some  familiarity  with  art,  was  a  member  of 
the  National  Academy  of  Design,  and  was  delighted  to  do  amateurs 
small  favors  in  the  way  of  tickets.  He  was  simple  in  his  tastes  and 
habits,  but  was  not  averse  to  letting  it  be  known  that  he  could  be  a 
gourmand  on  occasion.  His  opinions,  shrewd  and  generally  sound, 
were  always  strongly  and  sometimes  testily  maintained.  His  invest¬ 
ments  were  almost  uniformly  successful,  because  he  was  careful  and 
methodical,  and  never  speculated.  He  never  bought  real  estate.  His 
whole  fortune  at  his  death,  over  a  million  and  a  half  of  dollars,  could  be 
carried  in  his  hat.  Before  the  day  arrived  for  clipping  his  coupons,  he 
had  always  provided  for  investing  the  proceeds,  and  he  never  kept 
money  in  a  bank  where  it  would  not  draw  interest.  He  deeply  sym¬ 
pathized  with  the  Union  cause  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  and  in  the 
emancipation  of  the  slaves,  and  he  said  as  he  was  too  old  to  go  into 
the  army  he  would  help  the  Government  in  his  own  way.  This  was 
to  invest  largely  in  United  States  bonds  as  each  loan  was  offered. 
These,  and  solid  securities,  like  gas  stocks  and  New  York  Central, 
were  his  chief  investments.  He  offered  to  buy  4,000  shares  of 
Central  in  a  lump  from  the  old  Commodore,  whose  death  interrupted 
the  negotiation. 

“About  1820  Lewis  moved  to  Hoboken,  where  he  continued  to  reside 
to  the  time  of  his  death.  He  lived  most  of  the  time  with  only  an  old 
housekeeper  in  a  modest  house  in  Hoboken,  and  she  complained  that 
he  half-starved  her.  At  other  times,  when  he  lived  in  a  boarding  • 


1 32 


CONTESTANTS  OF  WILL. 


house,  he  was  always  suspicious  that  his  landlady  was  stealing  from 
him,  or  that  she  wanted  to  poison  him  to  get  his  money.  He  seemed 
to  take  a  cynical  delight  in  encouraging  people  to  believe  that  they 
would  be  remembered  in  his  will,  and  he  would  take  whatever  favors 
their  hopes  led  them  to  offer  him.  Everybody  to  him  seemed  to  be 
guided  by  sinister  motives.  He  kept  Joshua  Benson,  of  Hoboken,  on 
the  tenter-hooks  for  years.  Benson  was  too  poor  to  buy  a  house.  Mr. 
Lewis  loaned  him  the  money,  and  got  him  to  buy  the  one  next  to  his. 
From  that  time  Benson  did  almost  a  valet’s  service  for  him,  going  his 
errands,  reading  to  him,  and  humoring  all  sorts  of  whims.  Mr. 
Lewis’s  first  will  bequeathed  his  own  house  to  Benson,  and  a  handsome 
sum  of  money  to  his  wife  and  children,  of  which  fact  he  took  care  to 
let  Joshua  know.  All  at  once  he  became  suspicious  of  Benson,  revoked 
the  bequests,  and  demanded  the  return  of  the  money  he  loaned  him. 
Indeed,  the  testimony  in  the  will  case  leaves  little  doubt  that  the  old 
man  was  a  kleptomaniac  himself.  He  would  pick  up  little  articles  in 
grocery  ^stores  or  in  neighbors’  houses  when  opportunity  offered. 
About  his  own  house  he  was  slipshod.  At  the  basement  window  he 
would  be  seen  reading  his  newspaper,  wearing  a  white  nightcap,  covered 
by  an  old  straw  hat,  and  with  an  old  duster  over  his  shoulders.  The 
boys  threw  dirt  at  the  window  and  shouted:  ‘Hey!  old  bachelor!’ 
till  he  sallied  out  and  chased  them  away. 

“  The  old  man  was  proud  of  his  vigorous  constitution,  and  attributed 
it  to  his  temperate  and  prudent  habits.  Mr.  James,  of  the  Manhattan 
Bank  building,  who  used  to  invest  money  for  him,  describes  him  as 
coming  dancing  into  the  office  shortly  before  his  death,  at  eighty-seven 
years:  ‘  A-h-h !  eighty-seven  last  Tuesday,’  he  cried.  ‘Teeth  sound, 
firm  on  my  legs:  appetite  good.  Temperance!’  and  the  old  man 
chuckling,  would  slap  his  breast  like  a  crowing  cock.” 

Although,  as  we  have  said,  Mr.  Lewis  had  always  been 
known  to  his  friends  and  neighbors  as  a  bachelor  and  with¬ 
out  near  relatives,  greatly  to  the  surprise  of  the  executors 
of  his  will,  when  that  instrument  was  presented  for  probate, 
there  appeared,  as  contestants,  an  alleged  widow  calling 
herself  Jane  H.  Lewis,  and  one  Thomas  Lewis,  who  alleged 
himself  to  be  a  son,  and  two  other  persons,  named  John 
and  Martin  Cathcart,  claiming  to  be  nephews  of  the 
deceased  millionaire.  Then  be^an  a  most  determined  and 
bitter  contest  of  the  will  between  the  United  States  Gov- 


MR.  LEWIS  S  ANTECEDENTS. 


1  33 


ernment,  as  proponents,  and  the  alleged  widow  and  rela¬ 
tives,  as  contestants. 

Among  Lewis’s  papers  left  at  the  Manhattan  Bank  in 
New  York,  where  he  had  for  many  years  transacted  his 
business  and  kept  his  papers  and  securities,  were  found 
letters  revealing  the  names  of  relatives  at  Jamaica,  W.  I., 
and  among  them  one  addressed  “  My  Dear  Sir,”  and  signed 
“  Joseph  Levy.” 

Mr.  Lewis’s  will  had  been  drawn  in  the  office  of  ex- 
Attorney-General  Gilchrist,  of  Jersey  City,  and  he  was 
engaged  on  behalf  of  the  executors  to  sustain  it  against 
these  attacks.  E.  De  R.  Gillmore,  a  clerk  in  his  office,  was 
dispatched  to  Jamaica  to  investigate  as  to  Mr.  Lewis’s 
relatives.  The  same  steamer  carried  out  John  Cathcart, 
of  New  York,  one  of  the  alleged  nephews,  who  had  come 
from  Ireland,  but  he  and  Mr.  Gillmore  were  unknown  to 
each  other.  Mr.  Gillmore’s  first  step  on  landing  in 
Jamaica  was  to  engage  a  lawyer  named  Nathan,  who  knew 
the  Johnsons  and  Graces,  named  in  Mr.  Lewis’s  correspon¬ 
dence  as  relatives.  He  also  directed  Mr.  Gillmore  to  a 
very  old  black  woman,  who  was  familiar  with  their  early 
history.  Gillmore  and  Nathan  went  together  to  see  the 
old  black  woman.  She  told  the  following  story,  as  it  was 
produced  in  court:  Joseph  Lewis’s  father,  she  said,  was  a 
Jew  named  Jacob  Levy;  his  mother,  with  whom  Levy  had 
lived,  but  whom  he  did  not  marry,  was  Jane  Wright,  a 
mulatto  woman,  whose  mother  was  a  full-blooded  negress. 

Levy  took  his  boy  to  New  York,  so  that  nobody 
could  discover  his  parentage,  and  changed  his  name  to 
Lewis,  and  after  keeping  him  at  school  a  while,  bound  him 
apprentice  to  an  engraver.  The  old  woman  said  she  was 
told  about  this  last  circumstance  by  Charles  James,  another 
illegitimate  child  of  Jane  Wright  by  another  father;  she 
had  also  heard  that  Frances  Grace  and  Magdalene  Johnson 
had  been  receiving  money  regularly  from  this  long-absent 
half-brother  in  New  York. 


134 


AN  ALLEGED  WIDOW. 


After  listening  to  the  story  of  the  old  black  woman, 
which  he  took  down  in  writing,  and  making  a  careful  search 
of  the  records  of  marriage,  Mr.  Gillmore  satisfied  himself 
that  there  were  no  legal  heirs  of  Mr.  Lewis  in  the  West 
India  Islands,  and  also  that  the  reputed  nephews  of  New 
York  bore  no  relationship  to  him. 

While  Mr.  Gillmore  was  thus  pursuing  his  quest  in  South 
America  the  putative  widow  was  pressing  her  claims  before 
Master-in-Chancery  See,  in  Jersey  City,  to  whom  the  Chan¬ 
cellor  had  referred  the  matter,  to  take  testimony.  The 
executors  said  that  they  had  never  heard  of  the  million¬ 
aire’s  marriage  ;  but  she  told  her  story  with  minuteness  and 
confidence,  and  produced  a  genuine-looking  marriage  cer¬ 
tificate  to  verify  it.  This  purported  to  have  been  drawn 
November  18,  1858,  by  Ethridge  M.  Fish,  who,  as  was  well 
known,  had  been  a  justice  of  the  peace  in  Hoboken  years 
ago.  George  R.  Bradford,  whose  name  appeared  on  the 
certificate  as  a  witness  to  the  ceremony,  went  upon  the 
stand  and  testified  that  he  had  duly  witnessed  the  mar¬ 
riage  certificate.  One  Schmidt,  who  claimed  to  have  been 
a  commission  merchant  at  18 1  Pearl  Street,  swore  that  he 
had  been  in  Mr.  Lewis’s  house  in  1859,  and  there  had 
been  introduced  to  this  lady  by  Mr.  Lewis  as  his  wife. 
Elijah  Caldwell,  a  lawyer  in  New  York,  swore  that  he 
also  had  frequently  visited  Mr.  Lewis  at  his  house,  and 
had  seen  Mrs.  Lewis  there,  and  even  testified  that  he  had 
at  one  time  taken  proceedings  for  a  divorce  on  behalf  of 
Mrs.  Lewis  against  Joseph  L.  Lewis,  which  was  speedily 
settled  by  the  parties  in  his  office. 

The  alleged  widow  seemed  to  make  a  strong  case. 
Indeed,  Mr.  R.  W.  Russell,  counsel  for  Jamaica  claimants, 
admitted,  and  evidently  with  perfect  sincerity,  that  he  was 
convinced  her  standing  could  not  be  shaken,  and  that  he 
believed  her  to  be  an  estimable  woman.  “  When  she  first 
met  the  old  man,”  he  said,  “  he  was  more  than  seventy 
years  of  age,  and  she  was  about  twenty.  He  was  twenty 


THE  EXECUTORS  PUZZLED. 


135 


years  younger  in  appearance,  and  was  as  erect  and  agile 
as  a  man  in  the  prime  of  life.  To  conceal  the  evidence  of 
the  trace  of  negro  blood  in  his  veins  he  shaved  off  his 
kinky  hair  and  wore  a  wig.  The  dark  tint  in  his  cheeks  he 
artfully  concealed  by  a  few  touches  of  rouge.  He  courted 
Miss  Hastings,  who  was  handsome,  attractive,  and  well 
educated,  most  assiduously.  She  came  of  noted  families  in 
England  on  both  her  father’s  and  her  mother’s  side.  She 
was  left  an  orphan  at  an  early  age,  but  she  grew  up  with  a 
strong  pride  in  her  ancestry,  and  her  great  ambition  was  to 
visit  England.  She  once  rejected  Lewis’s  offer  of  mar¬ 
riage,  but  he  persisted  in  his  suit.  He  concealed  from  her  his 
doubtful  parentage,  and  represented  that  he  too  was  of  an 
old  English  family.  He  told  her  that  he  had  visited  England, 
and  had  been  presented  at  court.  Finally,  when  he  offered 
to  take  Miss  Hastings  to  England  in  search  of  her  ances¬ 
tors,  and  to  devote  himself  and  his  fortune  to  the  gratifica¬ 
tion  of  her  wishes,  she  agreed  to  marry  him.  Why,  he 
even  made  her  believe  that  he  possessed  literary  tastes.  He 
used  to  copy  poetry  out  of  books,  and  pass  it  off  on  her  as 
his  original  composition. 

“They  lived  together,”  Mr.  Russell  continued,  “for  six 
months,  and  then  she  went  away  from  him,  a  broken¬ 
hearted  woman.  In  regard  to  his  treatment  of  her,  more 
will  appear  hereafter.  One  instance  will  give  you  an  idea 
of  her  life.  The  old  man  came  into  her  room  one  day  and 
found  her  in  tears,  with  a  packet  of  letters  from  her  parents 
and  their  pictures  before  her.  In  a  rage,  he  swept  letters 
and  pictures  into  the  fire,  saying,  ‘  These  writings  make  you 
morbid.’  ” 

The  executors  and  their  counsel  were  puzzled  by  this 
mysterious  widow,  who  seemed  to  have  sprung  up  from  the 
earth.  She  was  tall,  light-complexioned,  modestly  dressed 
in  black,  about  forty  years  of  age,  self-possessed,  and  evi¬ 
dently  a  woman  of  experience.  She  declined  on  the  stand 
to  give  her  residence,  and  the  executors  put  detectives  on 


1 36 


THE  SUSPECTED  FORGER. 


her  track  vainly  for  a  time.  At  last  one  succeeded,  after 
she  had  led  him  through  a  puzzling  chase  on  her  way  home 
after  giving  her  testimony.  He  swore  that  she  crossed  to 
New  York  by  the  Desbrosses-Street  ferry,  then  took  a 
West-Street  car  to  the  Staten  Island  ferry,  which  she 
crossed,  and  returned  on  the  same  boat ;  then  visited  the 
Astor  House  and  a  number  of  other  places,  fetching  up  at 
last  in  No.  22  St.  Mark’s  Place,  which  the  detective  ascer¬ 
tained  to  be  a  boarding-house.  Her  further  movements 
were  watched  steadily.  In  the  month  of  August  it  was 
declared  that  she  made  about  thirty  visits  to  pawn-shops 
with  small  articles,  which  she  pawned  in  the  name  of  Jane 
Holbrook.  It  was  declared  by  the  detectives  that  she  was 
seen  to  associate  with  Marcus  T.  Sacia,  who  had  been 
repeatedly  charged  with  forgery.  The  Palisade  Insurance 
Company  of  Jersey  City  did  business  for  a  time  on  bogus 
securities,  and  Marcus  Sacia’s  father,  Charles  Sacia,  was 
indicted  for  his  agency  in  it. 

Another  associate,  to  whom,  as  alleged,  she  paid  furtive 
visits,  was  one  Dr.  Park.  The  detectives  said  that,  under 
pretense  of  writing  an  article  on  Joseph  Lewis  for  Harper  s 
Magazine,  Dr.  Park  succeeded  in  gleaning  from  Joshua 
Benson,  of  Hoboken,  the  most  minute  particulars  of  Mr. 
Lewis’s  life.  This,  the  executors  claimed,  might  explain 
the  widow’s  seeming  familiar  knowledge  of  the  old  man 
and  his  habits. 

The  alleged  marriage  certificate  was  shown  to  a  son  of 
Ethridge  M.  Fish,  who  swore  that  he  believed  the  signa¬ 
ture  to  be  a  forgery.  His  father,  he  said,  was  not  a  justice 
of  the  peace  at  the  date  of  the  certificate,  November  18, 
1858,  but  in  1858  or  1859  went  to  Iowa.  The  executors 
sought  intelligence  of  him  there,  and  were  told  that  he  was 
dead,  and  that  the  man  most  likely  to  be  engaged  in  the 
alleged  forgery  of  his  signature  was  Mark  Sacia,  who  had 
been  associated  with  him  in  Iowa  in  various  transactions. 
Sacia  had  been  employed  in  the  office  of  the  Recorder  of 


MORE  FORGED  CERTIFICATES. 


137 


Pocahontas  County,  and  a  large  quantity  of  his  writings 
were  found  there,  including  several  county  books.  County 
officials  who  had  long  known  both  Sacia  and  Fish  came  on 
from  Iowa,  bringing  and  identifying  these  writings  as 
Sacia’s,  and  after  examining  the  marriage  certificate  swore 
that,  in  their  opinion,  it  was  written  by  Sacia.  They  had 
observed  his  intimacy  with  Fish  in  Iowa,  and  had  seen  him 
imitate  Fish’s  signature  by  holding  a  paper  against  the  win¬ 
dow  and  tracing  over  it  with  a  pencil.  They  swore  that 
Sacia  had  engaged  in  several  culpable  transactions  in  Iowa, 
and  had  finally  fled  the  State,  secreted  in  a  dry-goods  box, 
to  escape  punishment  for  the  forgery  of  Lyons  County 
bonds. 

It  was  ascertained,  through  the  aid  of  the  Chief  of  the 
Bureau  of  Engraving  at  Washington,  D.  C.,  Mr.  Casillear, 
that  the  engraved  blank  upon  which  the  alleged  marriage 
certificate  was  written  could  not  have  been  in  existence  at 
the  time  of  the  alleged  date  of  the  certificate  in  1858,  as 
the  plate  from  which  it  was  printed  underwent  very  mate¬ 
rial  alteration  in  1862,  and  that,  therefore,  no  such  blanks 
could  have  existed  until  after  that  date.  Although  this  fact 
seemed  conclusively  proved,  it  was  sought  to  overthrow  it 
by  the  production  of  other  marriage  certificates  of  even  a 
prior  date,  written  upon  a  blank  printed  from  the  same 
plate,  and  that,  therefore,  the  testimony  concerning  the 
plate  was  insufficient  to  establish  the  forgery.  In  order  to 
accomplish  this  a  clergyman  was  offered  to  prove  the  regis¬ 
ter  of  St.  Ambrose  Church  in  New  York,  by  which  it 
appeared  that  certain  persons  had  been  married  on  the 
28th  of  August,  1859,  and  this  having  been  proved,  two 
other  marriage  certificates  were  produced  purporting  to 
have  been  made  in  the  years  1858  and  1859. 

Frank  Fleet  was  the  person  who  was  married  according 
to  one  of  these  certificates,  and  William  Arnoux  was  the 
witness.  Frank  Fleet,  Arnoux,  and  Elijah  j.  Caldwell 
swore  to  the  genuineness  of  these  certificates,  and  to  their 


EXPERTS  ARE  CALLED. 


138 

knowledge  of  the  circumstances  of  the  marriages,  in  posi¬ 
tive  terms,  going  into  minute  circumstances  of  the  transac¬ 
tions  to  show  that  these  certificates,  precisely  like  that  of 
Mrs.  Lewis,  were  really  made  and  signed  at  about  the  same 
time  as  that  which  purported  to  be  the  marriage  certificate 
of  Joseph  and  Jane  H.  Lewis. 

It  was,  however,  subsequently  proved  conclusively  that 
those  certificates  were  also  forgeries,  concocted  for  the  spe¬ 
cial  purpose  of  bolstering  the  original  forgery.  An  expert 
upon  handwriting  was  now  called  by  the  proponents,  who 
pronounced  the  marriage  certificate  a  forgery,  and  on  com¬ 
paring  it  with  Lewis’s  writing  declared  his  belief  that  the 
body  of  it  was  in  Sacia’s  undisguised  hand.  Comparing  it 
with  the  writing  of  Fish,  which  had  also  been  proved,  he  said 
the  signature,  “  Ethridge  M.  Fish,”  appended  to  the  cer¬ 
tificate,  was  in  Sacia’s  handwriting  and  an  imitation  of  the 
writing  of  Fish.  He  then  set  about  making  a  conclusive 
demonstration  of  the  correctness  of  his  conclusion,  — to 
do  which  he  caused  a  large  quantity  of  the  writing  of  both 
Sacia  and  Fish  to  be  photo-lithographed,  and  from  these 
printed  copies  he  cut  out  words  and  parts  of  words  corre¬ 
sponding  to  those  of  the  forged  marriage  certificates,  and 
arranged  and  pasted  them  upon  a  cardboard  in  the  same 
order  as  in  the  certificate  —  thus  making  up  two  certifi¬ 
cates  :  one  from  the  actual  writing  by  Sacia,  and  another 
by  Fish.  (See  accompanying  exhibits.)  These  two  cer¬ 
tificates  were  then  compared  with  the  forged  certificates, 
which  made  it  at  once  apparent  that  the  body  of  the  same 
was  in  the  almost  undisguised  writing  of  Sacia,  while  the 
signature  was  a  close  imitation  of  Fish’s,  but  likewise  forged 
by  Sacia.  Facsimiles  of  these  three  certificates  are  here¬ 
with  given,  together  with  their  form,  as  made  up  from  the 
clippings  from  the  writings  of  Sacia  and  Fish. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  year  1879,  Frank  Fleet,  one  of 
the  parties  to  the  marriage  certificates  produced  in  confirma¬ 
tion  of  the  original  certificate,  became  very  ill  and  was 


CERTIFICATE  MADE  UP  FROM  FISH’S  WRITING. 


FACSIMILE  OF  FISH’S  WRITING. 


139 


apparently  about  to  die.  He  made  a  full  confession  that  he 
had  been  persuaded  to  swear  falsely  as  to  these  certificates. 
In  the  mean  time  the  Government  detectives,  under  the 
direction  of  Special  Agent  H.  M.  Bennett,  of  Newark,  N.  J., 


1 4o 


THE  FORGED  MARRIAGE  CERTIFICATE. 


had  fully  satisfied  themselves  that  these  two  marriage  certifi¬ 
cates  were  forged  by  the  same  person  who  had  concocted 
the  original  conspiracy ;  and  after  the  confession  of  Fleet, 
three  of  the  persons  who  had  proved  those  certificates  were 


CERTIFICATE  MADE  UP  FROM  FORGER  SACIA’S  WRITING. 


THE  FORGER  SACXA’s  WRITING. 


IAI 


brought  forward  and  examined  on  behalf  of  the  Govern¬ 
ment,  and  thoroughly  exposed  the  fraud. 

At  this  period  of  the  case  Mrs.  Lewis  found  it  necessary, 
as  she  afterward  stated  in  her  confession,  to  furnish  some 


/KST, 


I42 


MORE  EVIDENCE. 


material  evidence  of  the  fact  that  she  had  lived  with  Mr. 
Lewis  as  his  wife.  She  was  urged  to  do  so  by  her  counsel, 
who  felt  the  force  of  the  fact  that  thus  far  no  article  or 
relic  remained  as  a  memento  or  token  of  her  married  life. 
She  stated  with  great  minuteness  how  this  was  done.  Mrs. 
Isabella  Harper  testified  to  the  finding  of  an  old  pillow-case 
containing  a  considerable  quantity  of  old  laces,  silks,  and 
other  articles,  which  she  alleged  had  been  left  by  Mrs. 
Lewis  in  her  house  in  1862  at  the  time  she  boarded  there; 
that  Mrs.  Lewis  had  used  the  pillow-case  as  a  rag-bag,  and 
in  moving  from  the  house  had  left  it  behind;  that  during 
the  examination  before  the  Master,  Mrs.  Lewis  had  come 
to  her  house  and  learned  of  the  fact  of  this  pillow-case 
having  been  left  by  her  with  Mrs.  Harper,  and  requested 
her  to  produce  it  before  the  Master  and  testify  to  the  cir¬ 
cumstances,  and  to  the  fact  that  it  had  been  there  in  her 
possession  since  1862;  that  on  being  opened,  they  found, 
among  the  old  articles  in  the  bag,  two  old  yellow  receipts 
for  board  signed  by  the  daughter  of  Mrs.  Harper,  saying 
that  they  were  receipts  for  the  board  of  Mrs.  Jane  H. 
Lewis.  The  pillow-case  was  found  to  be  marked  “Joseph 
L.  Lewis  ”  in  what  was  alleged  to  be  his  own  handwriting. 

This  piece  of  evidence  was  naturally  deemed  very  impor¬ 
tant  on  the  part  of  the  alleged  widow,  in  contradiction  to 
the  overwhelming  testimony  adduced  against  her,  as  to  the 
plate  from  which  the  marriage  certificate  was  made ;  but  in 
her  late  confession  she  explained  that  it  was  contrived 
under  the  direction  of  Dr.  Park,  the  chief  conspirator,  who 
sent  her  the  pillow-case,  and  who  must  have  procured  the 
name  of  Lewis  to  be  forged  upon  it.  She  thereupon  put 
the  old  articles  into  it,  and  carried  it  to  Mrs.  Harper,  and 
requested  her  to  produce  it  before  the  Master,  and  testify 
to  its  having  been  there  since  1862.  This  was  her  last 
effort. 

About  this  time  it  had  been  ascertained  that  Mrs.  Lewis, 
the  alleged  widow,  had  in  1874  personated  a  Mrs.  Jennie 


THE  WIDOW  A  FRAUD. 


H3 


Hammond  in  proceedings  for  a  divorce  from  a  pretended 
husband,  in  order  to  blackmail  a  gentleman  with  whom  she 
had  been  improperly  intimate.  District-Attorney  Keasbey 
went  to  Washington,  D.  C.,  in  order  to  secure  the  attend¬ 
ance  of  the  gentleman  in  question  to  identify  Mrs.  Lewis  as 
Mrs.  Jennie  Hammond.  Mr.  John  R.  Dos  Passos,  a  lawyer 
of  good  character  in  New  York,  had  been  employed  in  this 
case  on  behalf  of  the  gentleman  in  question,  and  had  had 
several  interviews  with  the  so-called  Jennie  Hammond. 
He,  together  with  the  gentleman  from  Washington,  came 
to  the  office  of  Mr.  See,  in  Jersey  City,  and  fully  identified 
Mrs.  Lewis  as  Jennie  Hammond. 

Mr.  Dos  Passos  and  his  brother  and  clerk  being  called  as 
witnesses,  produced  letters  written  by  the  alleged  widow 
while  personating  the  character,  and  alleging  that  she  was 
Mrs.  Jennie  Hammond,  and  made  the  matter  so  clear  that 
it  was  impossible  for  respectable  counsel  to  continue  longer 
to  maintain  her  claims.  Within  a  short  time  thereafter  she 
filed  a  formal  renunciation  of  her  claim  as  widow,  and  her 
case  was  ended. 

Further  testimony  was  taken  on  behalf  of  the  executors 
to  establish  the  competency  of  Mr.  Lewis  and  his  capacity 
to  make  a  will.  This  was  proved  by  many  bankers  and 
others  in  New  York  who  had  known  him  during  a  long 
course  of  years.  The  will  case  was  then  closed. 

Some  conception  of  the  length  and  persistency  of  this 
contest  may  be  formed  when  it  is  stated  that  about  three 
thousand  pages  of  testimony  were  taken  relative  to  the 
alleged  marriage  alone. 

Immediately  after  the  filing  of  her  renunciation  Mr.  Dis¬ 
trict-Attorney  Keasbey  brought  the  matter  to  the  attention 
of  the  Grand  Jury,  then  in  session  at  Trenton,  and  obtained 
an  indictment  against  nine  persons,  viz.,  Andrew  J.  Park, 
Jane  H.  Lewis,  Marcus  T.  Sacia,  Henry  T.  Bassford,  Frank 
Allison,  George  R.  Bradford,  Mary  J.  Russell,  George  N. 
Westbrook,  and  Frances  Helen  Peabody.  These  were  the 


i44 


CONSPIRATORS  CONVICTED. 


persons  whom  Mr.  Keasbey’s  long  investigation  into  the 
details  of  this  conspiracy  had  led  him  to  believe  were  the 
contrivers  of  the  plot.  He  had  had  conclusive  evidence 
against  many  of  them  in  his  hands  for  some  months,  but 
had  abstained  from  taking  criminal  proceedings  in  order  to 
avoid  the  imputation  that  the  United  States  were  using 
criminal  processes  to  affect  a  civil  proceeding.  As  soon, 
however,  as  the  conspiracy  was  so  thoroughly  exposed 
through  the  evidence  of  Mr.  Dos  Passos  and  others  as  to 
induce  the  widow  to  abandon  her  claims,  Mr.  Keasbey  pro¬ 
cured  the  indictments  and  caused  the  arrest  simultaneously, 
on  the  ist  of  February,  of  most  of  the  persons  implicated. 
He  became  satisfied  that  Dr.  Andrew  J.  Park  was  the  chief 
contriver  of  the  plot  and  the  originator  of  the  whole  claim 
within' a  few  days  after  the  death  of  Mr.  Lewis;  that  he 
had  known  Mrs.  Lewis  for  a  long  time  before,  and,  taking 
advantage  of  the  fact  that  her  name  was  really  Mrs.  Lewis, 
had  persuaded  her  to  join  him  in  the  execution  of  the  con¬ 
spiracy  by  personating  the  widow,  and  that  he  had  almost 
immediately  combined  with  Marcus  T.  Sacia,  well  known 
for  his  connection  with  forged  writings,  and  had  procured 
from  him  the  forged  marriage  certificate,  which  must  have 
been  executed  a  few  days  after  the  death  of  Mr.  Lewis. 
The  other  persons  accused  were  the  tools  of  these  con¬ 
spirators. 

Three  of  the  conspirators  were  tried  and  convicted  in  the 
United  States  Court  at  Trenton,  N.  J.,  of  conspiracy  to 
defraud  the  Government  out  of  the  property  bequeathed 
by  Joseph  L.  Lewis  to  the  United  States,  viz.,  the  pre¬ 
tended  wfidow,  Jane  H.  Lewis,  who  pleaded  guilty  and  was 
used  as  a  witness  on  the  part  of  the  Government,  and  Dr. 
Andrew  ].  Park,  Marcus  T.  Sacia,  George  R.  Bradford, 
Frank  Allison,  and  Henry  T.  Bassford,  whose  trial  began 
on  the  27th  of  February,  1880,  and  closed  on  the  10th  of 
March,  with  a  verdict  against  all,  Bradford  being  recom¬ 
mended  to  the  mercy  of  the  court,  Mrs.  Lewis,  in  her  con- 


THE  FORGED  WILL  OF  JAMES  G.  FAIR.  1 45 

fession,  having  alleged  that  Bradford  really  believed  that 
she  was  the  widow  and  had  lost  her  certificate,  and  con¬ 
sented  to  sign  the  forged  one  and  to  swear  to  its  genuine¬ 
ness  out  of  sympathy  for  her. 

The  court  sentenced  Sacia  and  Allison  to  two  years’ 
imprisonment,  and  to  pay  a  fine  of  $10,000  each  ;  Bradford 
and  Bassford  to  one  year’s  imprisonment,  and  to  pay  a  fine 
of  $1,000  each.  Park  was  sentenced  to  a  long  term  of 
imprisonment. 

Forgeries  Against  the  Estate  of  James  G.  Fair. — 
Whether  regarded  from  the  magnitude  of  the  sum 
involved,  the  duration  and  acrimony  of  the  legal  contest, 
which  ran  through  nearly  a  year,  (the  trial  continuing  over 
five  months,)  or  the  boldness  and  persistence  of  the  crime, 
the  forged  claims  against  the  Fair  estate  constituted  one  of 
the  causes  cdlebres  of  the  United  States. 

Chief  of  the  forged  instruments  was  a  will  disposing  of 
an  estate  of  about  twenty  millions  of  dollars,  and  when  it 
became  apparent  that  the  will  was  not  likely  to  succeed  in 
its  purpose,  two  deeds  were  placed  on  record,  purporting  to 
have  been  executed  by  James  G.  Fair,  conveying  to  Mar¬ 
garet  Craven  property  in  San  Francisco  valued  at  a  million 
and  a  half  of  dollars,  Mrs.  Craven  also  produced  an  alleged 
marriage  contract  between  herself  and  Mr.  Fair,  and  pur¬ 
porting  to  bear,  with  hers,  his  signature.  As  yet,  however, 
Mrs.  Craven  has  made  no  legal  claim  as  a  widow  under  the 
alleged  contract. 

The  expert  phase  of  the  contest  was  chiefly  as  to  the 
genuineness  of  the  will,  it  being  most  lengthy  and  alleged 
to  be  in  the  pencil-writing  of  Mr.  Fair.  It  presented  an 
extent  of  material  that  admitted  of  a  most  conclusive 
demonstration  of  its  falsity,  as  will  be  seen  by  reference  to 
the  illustrations  and  their  explanation  herewith  presented. 
The  will  consisted  of  two  full  legal-cap  pages,  written  with 
a  pencil  on  one  side  of  two  sheets,  which  presented  a  con- 


146  DIFFICULTIES  IN  WAY  OF  THE  FORGER. 

dition  most  practical  for  tracing,  by  which  means  the  for¬ 
gery  was  largely  perpetrated.  Had  it  been  attempted  to 
write  on  both  sides  of  one  sheet,  the  writing  on  the  first 
page  would  have  so  far  interfered  with  that  of  the  second 
page  as  to  have  made  it  impracticable. 

Where  a  long  legal  document,  especially  one  so  full  of 
technical  words  and  phrases  as  a  will,  is  to  be  fabricated, 
there  would  be  no  likelihood  that  the  forger  would  have 
sufficient  examples  of  the  chirography  of  the  person  whose 
writing  was  to  be  simulated  as  to  present  models  for  any 
considerable  portion  of  the  words  required  in  its  composi¬ 
tion  ;  and  here  would  be,  as  it  proved  in  this  case,  the  fatal 
difficulty.  Such  words  as  were  found  in  the  model  writing 
could  easily  be  traced  in  pencil,  by  placing  the  paper  on 
which  the  forgery  was  being  made  over  the  word  to  be 
copied,  holding  it  against  a  sheet  of  glass  upon  an  incline, 
and  simply  tracing  over  them  with  a  pencil.  Since  the  whole 
will  was  in  pencil,  this  was  a  very  simple  operation,  but 
when  the  necessity  came  to  use  a  word  not  to  be  found  in 
his  model  writing-,  it  was  more  difficult.  Such  words 
required  to  be  made  up  syllable  by  syllable  or  letter  by 
letter.  Then  would  occur  not  only  a  difficulty  of  making 
the  correct  forms  of  letters,  but  to  make  the  proper  and 
natural  connections  between  the  syllables  or  letters ;  and  as 
one  syllable  would  be  required  to  be  taken  from  one  piece 
of  writing  and  an  adjoining  one  from  another  piece,  perhaps 
written  upon  a  different  scale,  with  different  pencil,  and 
under  different  circumstances,  there  would  be  a  discrepancy 
in  size  and  slant,  awkward  spacing,  vacillation  as  to  shade, 
base-lines,  etc.  Again,  if  the  model  writing  was  somewhat 
limited,  it  would  not  furnish  examples  for  all  the  natural  and 
habitual  variations  of  the  writing  sought  to  be  imitated, 
which  would  lead  to  an  unnatural  duplication  of  such  pecu¬ 
liarities  as  were  present  in  their  limited  material ;  also 
shades  which  are  not  sufficiently  heavy  would  require  to  be 
retouched. 


EVIDENCE  FROM  COMPARISON. 


I47 


Cut  (1)  is  a  reproduction  of  a  portion  of  the  first  page 
of  the  will,  and  cut  (2)  represents  Fair’s  genuine  writing. 
Referring  to  cut  (1),  it  will  be  observed  that  the  words 
“is,”  “last,”  “will,”  “by,”  “be,”_/e>r,  in  “former,”  be  and 
th,  in  “bequeath,”  are  duplicates  of  Fair’s  writing.  Com¬ 
pare  “will,”  lines  2  and  3,  with  same  word,  cut  (2),  line  4; 
for  in  “former,”  with  “from,”  cut  (2),  line  7. 

In  the  will  the  first  word  is  clearly  in  two  parts,  the  line 
between  h  and  i  being  spliced  and  the  space  twice  as  long 
as  other  spaces  in  the  word.  The  different  examples  of 
“my,”  lines  2,  4,  7,  and  10,  are  evidently  copied  from  the 
same  model.  This  word  occurs  eighteen  times ;  sixteen 
times  it  terminates  with  a  hook  above  the  base-line,  while 
with  some  forty  final  ys  in  Fair’s  writing  only  two  termi¬ 
nate  with  a  hook,  and  these  are  below  the  base-line.  A 
model  of  Fair’s  “my”  is  shown  in  cut  (2),  line  11.  The 
word  “former,”  in  cut  (1),  line  2,  is  a  good  example  of  a 
word  made  up  of  one  word  (“for”)  and  then  completed 
with  a  letter  (in)  and  a  syllable  ( er ).  “  Bequeath,”  per¬ 

haps,  is  as  fine  an  illustration  as  any  of  word-building  by 
syllables  and  letters, —  be ,  y,  u ,  e ,  ath,  —and  this  word,  once 
satisfactorily  made,  is  duplicated  in  the  will  thirteen  times, 
with  its  awkward  combination  and  vacillating  base-line.  It. 
occurs  three  times  in  cut  (1),  lines  4,  7,  10.  “  Crothers,” 

line  5,  is  another  example  which  must  suffice.  The  word 
“equally,”  lines  6,  9,  11,  is  made  up  letter  by  letter,  and  is 
duplicated  twelve  times  in  the  will.  The  word  “  Edward,” 
cut  (1),  line  10,  and  cut  (2),  line  12,  gives  an  opportunity  to 
compare  the  capital  E.  Examples  of  the  retouching  of 
shades  in  the  forgery  are  the  two  As,  line  1  ;  T,  line  2  ;  /, 
lines  3,  4,  7.  There  were  over  five  hundred  retouchings 
and  breaks  between  letters  and  syllables. 

Attention  is  called  to  the  vacillating  character  of  the 
writing  in  the  forgery  as  regards  size,  shade,  spacing,  letters, 
syllables,  words,  and  lines,  and  also  to  the  short  projections 
of  the  loops,  as  compared  with  Fair’s  writing. 


(1)  SECTION  FROM  THE  FORGED  WILL. 


(2)  FAIR’S  GENUINE  WRITING. 


X  ^  ^  vs  \  v.?  C  K.< 


PARTICULAR  WORDS  DUPLICATED. 


Necessarily  only  a  comparatively  few  of  the  character¬ 
istic  differences  between  the  writing  in  the  forgery  and 
Fair’s  writing  can  be  here  illustrated,  or  even  mentioned. 
Their  exemplification  before  the  court  occupied  nearly  one 
week  on  the  direct  and  nearly  the  same  time  on  the  cross- 
examination. 

As  a  further  illustration,  we  present  a  few  groups  of 
words  and  letters,  with  forged  and  genuine  signatures.  The 
first  line  following  is  made  up  of  words  and  figures  from 
the  forged  will.  The  second  line  shows  the  same  words  as 
Fair  really  wrote  them.  Note  that  Fair  uses  the  dollar- 
mark  ($),  and  that  he  begins  the  word  “dollars”  with  a 
capital.  This  was  his  invariable  habit.  Throughout  the 
forged  papers  the  reverse  of  this  is  shown,  as  here  illus¬ 
trated. 


/  OOOQ 


9upUeatvon  o\)ko\'6d  tviTVill 


FROM  THE  FORGED  WILL. 


FAIR’S  GENUINE  WRITING. 


THE  First  line  following  shows  single  words  written  by  fair. 

THE  SECOND  LINE  SHOWS  THE  SAME  WORDS  AS  THEY  APPEAR  IN  THE 
FORGED  WRITING 


<Speei"meYi  ITi  mu 

mm  pA 


THE  FIRST  OF  THESE  TWO  NAMES  IS  FROM  THE  FORGED  W'LL. 
THE  OTHER  WAS  WRITTEN  BY  FAIR. 

^9  CuOxj 


JvfcYiu’vae  oj  eh* XT' 


r 

£2^4*hs 


SIGNATURES  TO  THE  SEVERAL  FORGED  DOCUMENTS. 


FORGED  WILL  OF  A.  J.  DAVIS,  BUTTE,  MONT. 


153 


The  Andrew  J.  Davis  Will  Contest. — Andrew  J. 
Davis  died  in  1880,  at  Butte  City,  Montana,  leaving  an 
estate  variously  estimated  at  from  $7,000,000  to  $13,000,- 
000,  according  to  the  fluctuating  value  of  stocks  and  mining 
property,  of  which  it  largely  consisted.  Shortly  after  An¬ 
drew’s  death  his  brother  John  applied  to  the  Probate  Court 
for  letters  of  administration,  on  the  plea  that  his  brother 
left  no  will.  John’s  application  was  opposed  by  other  heirs 
on  the  ground  of  his  unfitness.  The  court  however  decided 
in  his  favor,  but  it  was  carried  to  the  Court  of  Appeals. 
The  court  sustained  the  probate  decision,  two  justices 
assenting,  and  one  (the  Chief  Justice)  dissenting  on  the 
ground  that  the  facts  showed  that  John  proposed  defraud¬ 
ing  the  other  heirs,  and  therefore  ought  not  to  be  admin¬ 
istrator.  The  argument  of  that  appeal  in  the  Supreme 
Court  elicited  a  state  of  facts  calculated  to  make  the  out¬ 
come  of  the  appeal  at  best  doubtful. 

The  opening  argument  was  made  in  July,  1890,  and 
the  opinion  of  the  court  was  not  rendered  until  Decem¬ 
ber.  It  was  after  that  opening  argument  in  July,  and 
during  that  interval  of  doubt  and  uncertainty  of  the  suc¬ 
cess  of  John’s  application  to  be  put  in  charge  of  the  estate, 
that  an  alleged  will  was  produced,  purporting  to  have  been 
executed  by  A.  J.  Davis  in  1866,  devising  substantially  his 
entire  estate  to  his  brother  John.  At  that  time  the  estate 
of  Andrew  was  small,  and  his  mother  was  living.  On  this 
account  and  other  peculiar  circumstances,  it  seemed  prepos¬ 
terous  to  the  other  heirs  that  at  that  early  date  Andrew 
could  possibly  have  made  such  a  will.  The  discoverer  of 
the  alleged  will  was  one  James  R.  Eddy.  It  purported  to 
have  been  made  in  Davis  County,  Iowa,  and  to  have  been 
in  the  custody  of  Eddy’s  mother  for  twenty-five  years. 
It  was  shown  by  the  contestants  that  A.  J.  Davis  was  not 
at  that  time  a  resident  of  Iowa,  and  much  other  evidence 
was  introduced  to  show  the  great  improbability  of  the 
making  of  such  a  will  under  the  circumstances  alleged. 


*54 


SAMPLE  WRITING  FROM  FORGED  WILL. 


The  will  was  submitted  to  experts,  and  was  critically 
examined  for  internal  evidence  as  to  its  genuineness. 
First,  the  paper  upon  which  it  was  written  bore  evidence  of 
having  been  manipulated  to  give  to  it  a  false  appearance  of 
great  age,  by  having  been  colored  with  some  yellow  fluid, 
which  had  been  so  applied  as  to  be  very  unevenly  dis¬ 
tributed  over  its  surface,  drying  in  streaks  and  in  blotches,, 


SECTIONS  OF  THE  FORGED  WILL. 
j  ft^ruru/  erf  erf 

'Ore 

Ift  tfnZt  •»**.  fiof  _  (f  (f~  coo 

c£e  -Co  /  erf-  J?^£f  ^ 

oorf~  Pfe  rffeoj  '^rf-  <rfcecoUt  of  c 'T^w.  rf-A.  ’  O'..'* 

orfrf-.O.  XT*, 


O  b,  'rffotu  Cjjf  (P  &L,  -rfeorf  Crf ^ 

ff  ’rf^orf  'y*p  -Serf?"  'rfrfrf  c*  /eMiovourfrf Ovo^MM/of  oou>. 
a~4  4-ltrfrf  rp  (p  -rf^of'U^cfZrf  -tves^  ?pjpo 

'Ue  -2-  of  O-oSe  frxf  ffrtrfa^crf  'Pto*rfu*/  O 

/  /  /O'  /  '»  v  /  '  '  '  ,  N  /  , 

'/ve&)  "  '  ■ 


AT/  > 

\^  /  (/¥ 6 (rfj  <S iz*a£e</  tid'^cc/ 

\  <W  '  ^^Oc^tyo^  = 

\  .  *  .  .  j  „ "  v^Lv  V v  ° 

f 


/■ 


rftuC&r  <Zt*cS  /L*s  j/ztslMK 


rf^iJLOo^^  c>jS  &zc/( 

Ola*****  f^T/ 


SAMPLE  OF  WRITING  BY  THE  FORGER. 


155 


while  the  margins  were  torn  and  picked  so  as  to  give  it  a 
sort  of  saw-tooth  appearance ;  besides  the  whole  character 
and  appearance  of  the  document  was  that  of  having  been 
written  by  a  blundering  ignoramus.  Many  of  the  most 
common  words  were  misspelled.  For  instance  the  word 
“give”  was  spelled guive ;  “whether,”  wheather ;  “sheet,” 
sheat ;  “shall,”  shal ;  “worldly,”  wordly ,  etc.  Under  the 


SECTIONS  FROM  EDDY’S  WRITING. 


/  0*0  of/  '9*t£^  ^  dduA' 

cP  JcoK'UJL  ^ 

jMdi  0/  d?crc<seuf  -***-  ^ 

'vu/'  dcn^c/  K  e***t^z£ 

zb  'hi&Ae  t 

'('In&is  .d+f.  syne  (Z'd' 4W.  byy 
if  (Go  &  f-  ci&  ddU  'bzdbty. - 

d&cd!  01  (fnyx-tz/  cd 

'tdcg  jdecs&tf  y  ydcrS&eMfcd- 
-dt  ■zof'  bmC 


cP  'j^c 

\  ^HCc^t£A 


'zb 


/  Alyi  SZV-beA&>y  S  <db 

f  iW*t  JLaA,  Zo  Ibi  <»y  JL&yr  sUSiM  f  bbbuob 

dcnvtbJb^/  on*  owe,  AJUoJ'  crff  buw^-e. 

aJUc/  Wl4£  otcotne,  oJjfoxty  <7ooo  -&&co€ 

iby  Ul  n  2L  *t  2udZ^_  /*rr 

w  goadibzften.  /fdoc*tc£lzcS  £  -bco-iL,  ..... 

*0 


\  'S<jlLc4  J&wx&w  &iovbo  ,  CIA,  ^ ; 

\  '^b  /bob'  sobgf  If  d^otbbew4^>  ,, 

1  -2*i  iftt  /jbzie^e?  <^z>  ^  cob  W ft,  °fta/ 

-^A£AJ1~jS£,  ^ 

Ceuy£.obbot  -  "  J>----^-t . 

\  otcu^isuyO  _Vv*-  • 


cr^u] 


A  GRAND  FARCE. 


!56 

peculiar  statute  of  Montana  and  equally  peculiar  ruling  of 
the  judge,  no  comparison  of  the  writing  of  the  alleged  will 
with  standard  writing  was  permitted,  not  even  the  alleged 
signature  to  the  will  with  signatures  known  to  have  been 
written  by  A.  J.  Davis.  The  trial  resulted  in  a  disagree- 
-ment  by  the  jury,  and  was  finally  settled  by  compromise. 

Under  the  laws  of  Montana,  when  handwriting  is  in 
question,  one  having  knowledge  thereof  may  give  testi¬ 
mony,  but  the  Judge  held  that  the  word  “knowledge” 
contemplated  only  such  knowledge  as  one  might  have  from 
previous  familiarity  with  the  writing  in  question,  and  not 
knowledge  such  as  an  expert  might  acquire  from  study  and 
comparison. 

The  law  further  states  that  when  “any  matter  which 
involves  art,  science,  or  trade,  persons  skilled  therein  may 
be  called  to  give  testimony  respecting  the  same”;  but  the 
judge  held  that  writing  was  neither  an  art,  science,  nor 
trade,  and  therefore  excluded  all  expert  testimony,  and  also 
all  standard  writing  even  to  the  signature  of  the  testator. 
Yet  on  the  mere  allegation  of  an  unknown  man,  that,  over 
twenty  years  before,  he  had  met  Mr.  Davis  in  the  highway 
and  paid  him  some  money,  for  which  he  gave  him  a  receipt 
written  with  pencil,  while  sitting  in  his  carriage,  was  per¬ 
mitted  to  testify  to  the  genuineness  of  the  signature  to  the 
will. 

The  trial  was  one  of  the  greatest  farces  ever  enacted  in 
a  court  of  justice.  The  known  forger  sat  in  the  court¬ 
room  during  some  of  the  trial,  shielded  by  the  fact  that  all 
expert  testimony  was  excluded,  when  its  admission  would 
have  surely  demonstrated  the  will  to  be  a  forgery,  and 
James  R.  Eddy  to  be  the  forger. 

We  append  cuts  of  writing,  showing  a  few  of  the  many 
coincident  characteristics  as  between  the  writing  of  the 
forged  will  and  one  known  to  have  been  in  the  handwriting 
of  Eddy,  and  could  have  been  proved  into  the  case  as 
such. 


Fd>c-sinr\iS es  from  Will.. 

*  /  „ 

Ous^/c^/  'B^yk/^ 

sU/a^ 

C$Oi  Ctyf^ 

Ck^,  •  *44^ 


F&c- singles  of  Eddy’s  writing 
a 

r^yfyt^L^  .  Cl^istyUtA-P , 

/2 l^-c^/ckf  aaYaslf 

>*Jd£~€t^ dL^CL^  ^e&'/fCtJ^ 

sdJaJ 

oi  C4^t4^ 


<2V-C^ 


fk^Jf  04^ 

(kyik^f  /0y^/kt^4^ 


FACSIMILES  FROM  EDDY’S  WRITING. 


FACSIMILES  FROM  WILL. 

7 


c/.  0/ ^  cestui  o(  tyf .  sZL&ZZfZ  d, 

O^u^a  c4  /Ttusk  cyf.  , 

o/j^Xex-^-i-  &/_  ^py/fcs-ts-P  c/ ,  \o-/o/. 

c^//  aJft  ejty 


,  *  n  * 

^s{SlA.  ~^StAs  iSl^X  -^'Z'L 


,ytsy\  '1st' i 


12 


g  t  ^yu/ti^Zat 
C/Z^J 

(y  p  a  f  t~  f- 

(f  r  &  0-  /■  P 


' 


cy/s^l  y^isZA  l^st^CA 


2.7 


< 7 '«**?  (mi) 

(X  f  (?■  ^  cf 
(jVr  ^  V  (f  ^ 


/* 

£■ 


A  REMARKABLE  TRIUMPH  OF  EXPERT  EVIDENCE.  I  59 


The  Dodge-Raymond  Case. — No  other  case,  within  our 
knowledge,  has  ever  been  tried  before  an  American  court 
wherein  a  more  ingenious  and  romantic  crime  of  forgery 
has  been  traced  and  so  utterly  baffled  by  expert  testimony 
as  in  the  Dodge-Raymond  trial  at  Plymouth,  N.  H.,  in 
1885.  Although  tried  as  a  libel  case,  it  was  really  one  of 
forgery.  The  following  is  from  a  report  of  the  trial  by  the 
Bellows  Fall  (Vt.)  Times:— 

“Mr.  J.  A.  Dodge  was  president  of  the  Boston,  Concord,  and  Mon¬ 
treal  Railroad,  and  his  business  relations  were,  therefore,  very  extensive. 
His  health  became  poor,  and  in  the  early  part  of  1882  he  went  to  Cali¬ 
fornia  for  its  improvement,  but  failed  to  recover  it.  Henry  Raymond 
was  a  confidential  clerk  or  private  secretary  in  his  office.  Mr.  Dodge 
died  in  August,  1882,  leaving  a  will  and  three  codicils  giving  a  detailed 
description  of  his  possessions,  and  advice  to  his  wife,  as  the  executrix,  for 
the  payment  of  all  legacies  and  other  obligations.  Raymond  presented 
to  the  bank  and  got  cashed  a  check  for  $2,500  a  few  hours  before  Mr. 
Dodge  died,  the  same  purporting  to  have  been  signed  by  Mr.  Dodge 
only  a  few  days  previous,  and  immediately  after  his  death  he  presented 
a  note  for  $5,000  to  the  widow  for  payment.  Of  course,  Raymond 
claimed  that  all  of  this  came  from  the  good  will  which  Mr.  Dodge  had 
for  him.  When  Raymond  showed  his  papers  to  Mrs.  Dodge,  or 
announced  what  he  had,  she  denounced  them  as  forgeries,  and  him  as  a 
forger,  in  no  uncertain  terms,  claiming  that  as  her  husband  had  told  her 
very  fully  of  his  affairs  it  was  very  strange  he  had  not  told  her  about 
this.  She  expressed  the  same  to  others,  and  thereupon  Raymond 
brought  a  suit  against  Mrs.  Dodge  for  libel  and  damages  for  $5,000,  to 
be  followed  by  suits  to  recover  the  amount  of  the  check  and  note. 
This  is  a  mere  brief  of  the  case  at  this  point,  as  it  is  not  our  purpose  to 
go  into  the  details  of  all  the  suit,  but  only  to  bring  out  a  special  point  in 
the  trial. 

“  The  trial  began  November  17th  and  continued  several  days, 
during  which  several  parties  of  prominence,  who  were  familiar  with  the 
handwriting  of  Dodge,  testified  to  the  genuineness  of  Mr.  Dodge’s 
signature  to  the  note  and  check.  It  will  be  seen,  of  course,  that  the 
bank  which  cashed  the  $2,500  check  was  naturally  interested  in  the 
result  of  the  case.  One  of  the  witnesses  (one  of  the  selectmen  of 
Plymouth)  testified  how  he  advised  Mrs.  Dodge  to  settle  the  same,  as 
he  believed  the  signature  to  be  genuine,  and  ‘  she  would  be  $5,000 
poorer  when  the  case  was  finished.’  At  this  point  counsel  for  Mrs. 


i6o 


PRESS  REPORTS  OF  THE  TRIAL. 


Dodge  asked  ‘Why?’  ‘  Because  you  are  going  to  get  beaten,’  replied 
the  selectman. 

“  On  the  19th  the  plaintiff  rested  and  apparently  had  a  strong  case. 
A  contest  sprang  up  as  to  the  number  of  experts  and  the  number  of 
admittedly  genuine  signatures  and  other  writing  of  Mr.  Dodge  that 
should  be  allowed,  and  Judge  Smith  decided  that  twenty  signatures 
might  be  produced  by  each  side,  and  that  three  experts  and  twenty 
non-professionals  should  be  allowed  to  testify  for  each. 

“On  the  20th  the  defense  opened  by  a  statement  from  Charles  A. 
Jewell,  of  counsel  for  the  defense.  Several  witnesses  testified,  their 
testimony  being  mainly  circumstantial,  among  them  Mrs.  Dodge,  the 
defendant,  and  also  the  Hon.  Edgar  Aldrich,  of  Littleton,  who  said 
he  doubted  the  genuineness  of  the  signature  to  both  note  and  check. 
The  testimony  of  Mrs.  Dodge  and  Raymond  were  flat  contradictions. 
This  and  other  similar  testimony  continued,  the  excitement  and  attend¬ 
ance  increasing  every  day  till  Tuesday,  the  24th.  Now  came  the  ‘tug 
of  war.’  Mr.  D.  T.  Ames,  of  New  York,  was  put  on  the  stand  as  an 
expert.  Enlarged  photographs,  nearly  three  feet  long,  of  the  signa¬ 
tures  to  the  codicil  of  Mr.  Dodge’s  will,  written  during  his  illness,  and 
his  alleged  signature  of  the  check  and  note  were  exhibited  side  by  side 
before  the  jury,  when  Mr.  Ames  instituted  a  close  and  telling  com¬ 
parison  between  the  genuine  and  forged  signatures,  pointing  out  clearly 
and  in  detail  the  many  evidences  of  forgery,  making  at  the  same  time 
a  free  and  skillful  use  of  a  blackboard  and  crayon  for  the  illustration  of 
the  nice  characteristic  distinctions  which  he  drew  between  the  writing 
of  the  genuine  and  forged  signatures.  He  had  examined  a  letter  writ¬ 
ten  by  Mr.  Dodge  in  California  to  Mr.  Raymond,  and  found  the  figures 
‘  26  ’  and  the  word  ‘  Raymond  ’  in  the  note  the  same  in  every  particular, 
and  claimed  the  forger  had  copied  the  words  and  date  by  means  of  trac¬ 
ing.  In  twenty-eight  capital  D' s  found  in  the  standards  written  by  Mr. 
Dodge,  he  had  found  no  one  that  in  all  its  nice  characteristics  was  like 
those  in  the  signatures  in  question. 

“As  Mr.  Ames  continued  his  testimony  he  most  plainly  laid  open 
the  forgery  and  plot  of  Raymond  in  the  most  convincing  manner. 
Indeed,  he  tore  all  pretension  to  genuineness  to  shreds,  not  only 
respecting  the  check  and  note,  but  showed  how  Raymond  had  even 
fabricated  by  tracing  an  entire  letter  alleged  to  have  been  given  him 
by  Mr.  Dodge,  evincing  his  good  will  and  previous  promise  to  ‘  do 
something’  for  him  (Raymond)  as  furnishing  a  motive  and  considera¬ 
tion  for  the  pretended  legacy  consummated  in  the  giving  of  the  check 
and  note. 

“  Mr.  Ames’s  testimony  was  as  convincing  to  the  prosecution  as  to 


plaintiff’s  attorneys  abandon  the  case.  161 

all  others.  At  its  close  the  attorneys  for  the  prosecution  immediately 
announced  their  inability  to  controvert  his  testimony,  and  expressed  a 
willingness  that  the  defense  should  have  a  verdict,  which  the  jury  ren¬ 
dered  without  leaving  their  seats. 

“The  note  was  surrendered  to  Mrs.  Dodge’s  counsel.  The  case 
had  collapsed  ;  the  whole  business  was  admitted  to  be  a  forgery,  and 
Raymond  was  arrested  before  leaving  the  court-room,  on  a  warrant 
issued  by  the  presiding  judge,  and  placed  under  bonds  to  appear  for 
trial  for  forgery. 

“  In  many  respects  it  would  be  admitted  that  the  forgery  was  close 
to  the  genuine,  and  the  casual  reader  and  many  familiar  with  the  hand¬ 
writing  of  Mr.  Dodge  could  be  well  excused  for  believing  the  hand¬ 
writing  to  be  genuine,  and  yet  in  the  dissection  of  the  letters  and 
words,  distances,  shadings,  and  in  various  other  ways,  Mr.  Ames  threw 
a  perfect  flood  of  unquestionable  light,  covering  the  entire  case,  and 
certainly  a  most  remarkable  instance  of  effective  expert  testimony.  ’  ’ 

The  Manchester  (N.  H.)  Daily  Union ,  November  25th, 
commenting  on  the  Dodge-Raymond  case,  said : — 

“  The  sudden  and  unexpected  turn  of  affairs  in  the  Dodge-Raymond 
suit  to-day  produced  a  profound  sensation,  and  the  case  seems  destined 
to  become  known  as  one  of  the  most  remarkable  in  the  criminal  annals  of 
New  Hampshire.  .  .  .  The  case  was  sharply  contested,  point  by 

point,  by  the  opposing  counsel,  and  when  the  court  assembled  this 
morning,  no  one  of  the  crowd  of  spectators  suspected  that  the  end  was 
so  near  at  hand. 

“Mr.  Ames,  the  New  York  expert,  resumed  his  testimony,  com¬ 
menced  yesterday,  and  step  by  step  unfolded  and  made  clear  the  entire 
plot  of  Raymond  respecting  not  only  the  forgery  of  the  $2,500  check 
and  $5,000  note,  but  of  letters  purporting  to  have  been  signed,  and  one 
written  and  signed  by  Dodge,  intended  for  the  double  purpose  of  show¬ 
ing  a  reason  for  his  giving  to  Raymond  the  check  and  note,  and  to 
furnish  standard  signatures  which,  when  compared  with  those  upon  the 
check  and  the  note,  should  prove  their  genuineness. 

“  The  evidence  produced  a  profound  sensation,  but  neither  court  nor 
spectators  were  prepared  for  the  surprise  that  followed  when  Raymond’s 
counsel,  after  consultation,  announced  their  agreement  that  a  verdict  of 
not  guilty  be  entered  for  Mrs.  Dodge  in  the  suit  for  slander.  It  was  as  if 
a  thunderbolt  had  fallen,  and  the  audience  found  it  difficult  to  realize  that 
the  famous  Dodge-Raymond  suit  had  fallen  through.  The  developments 
in  the  affair  thus  far  equal  Gaboriau’s  most  sensational  inventions.” 


THE  FORGED  CHECK. 


THE  FORGED  NOTE. 


LETTER  FROM  DODGE  TO  RAYMOND,  FROM  WHICH  THE  FORGED 
LETTER  OF  JUNE  25,  1883,  WAS  LARGELY  MADE  UP. 


3'Cotdi  5ct^)UovvVe , 

^Ont  ERE.V.^''" 


/fFJ 


.S 


(Cl  Cly-<-XuF/  yxFFlj 

c^j  yx-cuy  ,  ^F 

C^Cco — £-  (X  -T-  r^  Ot-^1  /t,^  ^  c-  ^  (X? 

y(^Fy ' 


jcy  J)  y^F 


/2>  C 


JU^zy^  & 


'O^-x. 


iy(_S 


_  / 


Cxxx—  cyFFy  £xx£^Fy  d'Z^F 
c/xy-L-jf  /ytx~e£F  c/ ^JUxC  £iF/Cyy  txyiryFz. 

Cc ^)  ciyt^^'  t  /C*?^y  cy-FcF  Fx-c^^x  FFy^-  iF'UyFc 

/yJ  s//.yvM  yry  cX*j/^,  <^*0  yF /xFFt^ 

cF (F^ciFC^  gjy Fc<y^<— FF'^*~x~'  cxF&F  Fj/^txFCy 
cxiMy  (Ly>^fy 

/^{LXcFF^IFx-  rf\£^jyc  Cy  ’  6'  ^F 

Fxj^nyt  £^F^//x^(LX/  ^^7-T; ^FlxuMx 

{y^Cis^- y  /fay^y  yFCcyx^-’  y  ~i-  y  j( 


Boston  Concord  and Montre al  Railroad  . 


OFf/re  of 


PENCIL  LETTER,  FORGED  BY  TRACING  THE  WORDS  AND  SIGNATURE  FROM  THE 
LETTER  ON  OPPOSITE  PAGE. 


Hon.  Harry  Bingham,  ex-Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  New  Hampshire,  said:  “Raymond’s  coolness  in  pre¬ 
senting  the  note  to  the  widow  for  payment,  and  his  audacity 


A  FORGED  DEED. 


I  66 

in  suing  her  for  slander  because  she  said  his  note  and  check 
were  forgeries,  combined  to  mark  him  as  a  rogue  of  unusual 
foresight  in  conception,  subtlety  in  design,  and  boldness  in 
execution,  and  to  stamp  the  case  as  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  ones  of  its  kind.  The  skilled  expert  work 
and  unflagging  industry  in  searching  out  the  character¬ 
istics  of  the  handwriting  of  both  Dodge  and  Raymond 
through  a  great  mass  of  manuscript ,  in  devising  means 
of  making  the  propositions  you  would  enunciate  intelligible 
and  convincing  to  the  jury,  and  the  success  which  attended 
your  efforts,  were  all  so  unquestionable  and  summary  that 
counsel  for  Raymond,  in  what  lately  appeared  an  impreg¬ 
nable  case,  abandoned  it  at  the  end  of  your  direct  expert 
testimony,  and  conceded  a  verdict  to  the  defendant  with¬ 
out  exceptions  or  compromise.” 

A  Forged  Deed. — -Among;  the  most  daring  forgeries 

o  c»  o 

that  have  come  before  the  courts  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
was  that  of  a  forged  deed. 

In  1857  a  gentleman  died  in  Ulster  County,  leaving  to 
his  three  daughters,  by  will,  a  homestead  valued  at  $16,000, 
on  which  they  continued  to  reside  in  undisputed  posses¬ 
sion  until  the  death  of  the  last  sister,  some  time  in  1889. 
At  that  time  one  D.  D.  Bell  produced  an  alleged  old  deed 
conveying  the  homestead  to  a  nephew  upon  the  decease  of 
the  sisters,  which  deed  Bell  said  was  executed  by  the  father 
just  prior  to  his  decease  and  left  with  him  (Bell)  in  trust 
for  the  nephew,  with  directions  that  it  must  be  kept  a 
secret,  and  not  be  recorded  until  alter  the  decease  of  his 
daughters.  The  deed  was  placed  on  record  at  the  Regis¬ 
ter’s  office,  in  Kingston.  At  the  same  time  another  deed 
was  recorded,  conveying  one  half  of  the  estate  to  an  attor¬ 
ney  who  appeared  on  behalf  of  the  nephew.  An  action 
was  at  once  brought  to  expunge  the  two  deeds  from  the 
record  on  the  ground  of  forgery.  At  the  trial,  at  Kingston, 
N.  Y.,  in  1887,  the  deed  was  proved  to  be  a  forgery,  and 


STANDARD  AND  FORGED  WRITING  COMPARED.  1 67 

Bell  was  soon  after  convicted  of  the  crime  and  sentenced 
to  the  State  Prison. 

The  forged  deed  purported  to  have  been  written  and 
witnessed  by  one  Snyder  in  1857,  and  was  acknowledged 
by  Bell  as  notary.  Photographs  of  both  deeds  were  placed 
in  the  hands  of  each  juryman  and  the  court.  While  the 
expert  testimony  was  being  given  and  illustrated  upon  a 
blackboard,  the  attention  of  the  jurymen  was  directed  to 
the  peculiar  features  of  each  of  the  writings  by  the  number 
of  the  line  in  which  they  concurred,  and  to  the  palpable  evi¬ 
dence  that  the  paper  upon  which  the  alleged  old  deed  was 
written  had  been  manipulated  by  washing  with  some  col¬ 
ored  fluid  and  roughly  handled  to  give  to  it  an  apparent  age 
which  it  did  not  possess. 

On  the  next  page  is  a  reproduction  of  a  portion  of  a 
deed  written  by  Snyder  which  was  used  as  a  standard  for 
comparison  with  the  forged  deed  at  the  trial. 

From  the  character  of  the  writing  of  the  forged  deed  it 
was  apparent  that  the  forger  had  only  a  limited  amount  of 
Snyder’s  writing  to  serve  as  models  in  his  forgery.  Cer¬ 
tainly  he  had  no  deed,  else  there  would  have  been  a  more 
characteristic  reproduction  of  such  peculiarly  displayed 
words  as  “This  Indenture,”  “Lord,”  “Between,”  and 
“  Witnesseth,”  and  the  capital  letters  W,  Afl  and  Y  Again, 
it  is  obvious  that  the  forger  was  a  student  of  the  Spence¬ 
rian  school  of  writing  which  was  not  in  vogue  in  Snyder’s 
time,  his  writing  being  that  of  the  old  shaded  round-hand 
which  preceded  the  Spencerian.  It  will  be  observed  that 
the  ri s  and  ms  in  the  standard  writing  close  back  nearly  to 
top,  where  they  have  round  turns,  while  in  the  forged  writ¬ 
ing  they  are  nearly  open  angles. 

A  curious  mistake  of  the  forger  was  made  in  the 
word  “of.”  In  the  standard  writing  this  word  is  made 
in  two  ways,  one  finishing  at  the  center  with  a  small 
loop,  as  in  lines  2,  5,  and  6,  and  elsewhere.  In  the  other, 
the  finishing  stroke  uniformly  passed  over  the  staff  to  the 


\  ^  -sf  ^  vs 


* 


Section  of  Forged  Dec  cl. 


i  ;o 


COMPARISON  CONTINUED. 


Forffocl  'Sijfi  of  Sr/ tjcIe/\ 


left,  as  in  lines  9  and  1 1, 
and  elsewhere  frequently 
in  the  deed. 

The  forger  either  had 
only  the  one  style  in  his 
limited  copy  or  failed  to 
observe  the  other,  and  in 
every  instance  carried  the 
finishing  stroke  over  to 
the  left  of  the  staff  but 
invariably  over  the  top  of 
the  0.  See  lines  2,  5,  6, 
7,  8,  9,  and  10,  and  so  on 
through  the  deed  without 
exception. 

In  the  standard  writing 
there  were  several  methods 
of  making  the  small  0 ,  as 
in  lines  2,  3,  7,  8,  9,  etc., 
while  in  the  forged  deed 
there  was  but  one  form. 
We  call  attention  to  but 
few  of  the  many  character¬ 
istic  distinctions  between 
the  two  writings  pointed 
out  at  the  trial. 

An  insuperable  difficulty 
was  encountered  by  the 
forger  in  Snyder’s  genuine 
signature,  which  was  freely 
written,  the  capitals  and 
loops  being  swept  with  an 
arm  movement  and  the 
entire  signature  inclosed 
within  an  oval  flourish ; 
this  could  be  imitated  only 


AN  UP-TO-DATE  SIGNATURE  FOR  AN  ANCIENT  ONE.  I  7  I 

by  a  drawn  movement,  which  produced  irregular,  nervous, 
and  ragged  lines,  while  the  inclosing  flourish  was  made 
more  circular  than  that  of  the  genuine. 

Another  striking  and  peculiar  oversight  on  the  part  of 
Bell  was  that  when  he  came  to  sign  his  own  name  to  the 
forged  deed,  as  notary,  he  used  the  habitual  signature  of 
1887  instead  of  that  of  1857,  between  which  there  was  a 
marked  discrepancy  as  the  accompanying  illustrations  will 
show.  These  also  show  how  Bell’s  signature  should  have 
appeared  upon  the  deed  dated  in  1857,  if  genuine. 


j3ell6  S  ig-  toUflpd. 


Boll's  Si(j&  iji /S'%'4. 


BBls  Sig.ni/%B7’ 

.Mj 


The  Baker  Will  Contest. —  The  contention  in  this 
case,  which  was  tried  in  Toronto,  Ontario,  before  Judge 
Ferguson,  was  over  a  single  word  interlined  in  the  body  of  a 
will.  Although  only  a  single  word,  it  changed  the  disposi¬ 
tion  of  something  over  $30,000.  Mr.  Baker  died  in 
Georgetown,  Ontario,  leaving  a  will  bequeathing  a  large 
estate  to  two  sons  and  two  daughters.  The  sons  were 
named  in  the  will  as  the  executors.  Upon  examination  of 
the  will  after  the  decease  of  Mr.  Baker,  the  word  “  between  ” 
was  found  to  be  interlined  so  as  to  direct  over  $30,000,  a 
residue  of  the  estate  after  payment  of  all  debts  and  speci¬ 
fied  legacies,  to  be  divided  between  the  executors.  The 


172 


A  UNIQUE  WILL  CONTEST. 


sons  were  charged  with  inserting  the  interlineation  in  the 
will,  it  having  been  in  a  safe  at  the  paternal  home,  where 

the  sons  continued  to  reside.  The 
writer  of  the  will,  a  Mr.  Knight, 
\  S  was  consulted  as  to  the  interline- 

„  ation,  also  the  two  witnesses  to  the 

will.  Knight  declared  that  the 

o 

interlineation  was  not  written  by 
him,  nor  was  it  in  the  will  at  the 
time  of  the  signing.  The  wit- 
nesses  did  not  observe  the  will 
sufficiently  close  to  know  whether 
or  not  the  interlineation  was  in  the 


will  when  signed  and  witnessed. 

o 


The  sense  of  the  will  being  in¬ 
complete  without  the  interlineation, 
it  was  claimed  by  the  contestants 
that  the  word  “by”  should  have 
been  written  in  place  of  “between.” 
By  the  sons  it  was  claimed  that 
inasmuch  as  the  father  had  pre¬ 
viously  made  large  bequests  to  the 
daughters  at  the  time  of  their  mar¬ 
riage,  it  seemed  probable,  as  it  was 
alleged,  that  his  purpose  was  to 
equalize  the  shares  of  the  sons  with 
those  of  the  daughters,  by  dividing 
between  the  sons  the  residue  of  his 
estate. 

The  will  was  submitted  to  the 
writer  for  an  opinion  as  to  whether 
or  not  the  interlined  word  was  writ¬ 
ten  by  Mr.  Knight,  and  was  con¬ 
sequently  in  the  will  when  it  was 
signed.  Upon  the  examination  of 
a  large  number  of  documents  writ- 


THE  GORDON  WILL  CONTEST. 


173 


ten  by  Knight  it  was  discovered, — first,  that  wherever 
he  made  an  interlineation  it  was  in  back-hand,  the  reverse 
of  his  habitual  slant ;  second ,  that  he  had  a  peculiar  habit 
of  sometimes  omitting  the  loop  from  extended  letters, 
and  afterward  putting  it  on  (this  was  done  in  the  b  in 
“between,”  and  also  in  the  word  “be”  at  the  beginning  of 
the  line  in  which  the  interlineation  occurred);  third ,  Knight 
had  a  muscular  difficulty  in  his  fingers  that  frequently  pro¬ 
duced  an  involuntary  jerk  at  the  base  of  his  extended 
letters  which  was  manifest  also  at  the  base  of  the  b  in 
“  between  ”  ;  fourth,  the  characteristic  cross  of  the  t  in 
“between,”  coincident  with  other  crosses  in  the  will. 
These  and  some  other  reasons  proved  conclusively  that  the 
interlineation  was  placed  there  by  Knight,  and  the  will  was 
admitted  to  probate  as  interlined. 

Tiie  Gordon  Will  Contest. —  The  contest  of  this  will 
was  before  the  Chancellor  of  New  Jersey,  at  Newark, 
during  the  year  1892.  The  will  disposed  of  a  large  estate 
in  a  manner  which  rendered  its  genuineness  highly 
improbable.  It  was  therefore  contested  on  the  ground  of 
forgery.  On  page  174  is  presented  a  facsimile  of  the 
closing  paragraph,  together  with  the  contested  signature  of 
George  P.  Gordon  and  those  of  the  three  alleged  witnesses, 
to  the  will;  also,  on  page  175  are  a  number  of  genuine 
signatures  of  Mr.  Gordon,  above  which  is  the  alleged 
signature  to  the  will.  The  body  of  the  will  was  conced- 
edly  in  the  writing  of  Henry  Adams. 

By  reference  to  the  illustration  on  page  175,  it  will  be 
observed  that  the  forged  signature  is  really  a  very  bad 
imitation  of  either  of  the  genuine  ones.  First,  it  is,  in  a 
general  way,  upon  a  much  more  contracted  scale,  more 
heavy  and  formal  in  its  construction,  and  has  not  the  dash 
and  grace  of  Gordon’s  genuine  signatures.  In  the  forgery 
the  capital  G’s  begin  at  the  base  with  an  upward  move¬ 
ment,  and  is  one  continuous  movement  from  the  beginning 


174 


EVIDENCE  OF  FORGERY. 


to  its  very  formal  finish  with  a  complete  shaded  circle, 
while  all  the  G's  of  the  genuine  signatures  are  made  with 
two  separate  movements  of  the  pen.  The  G  is  propor¬ 
tionately  high.  It  begins  at  the  top,  and  moves  down 
with  a  graceful  left  curve  to  near  the  base-line,  when  it 
makes  a  round  turn  and  rises  up  half  way  to  the  top  of  the 
letter,  and  returns  on  a  long  closed  line  to  near  the  base 
and  finishes  with  an  informal  upward  movement  to  the  left, 
when  the  pen  is  lifted  and  carried  to  the  top  of  the  letter 
and  the  loop  is  made  by  a  separate  downward  sweep  to 
the  right  of  the  first  clown-stroke,  which  it  crosses  at  about 
its  middle,  and  finishes  with  a  free  and  informal  sweep  far 
out  to  the  left  of  the  staff. 

The  e  and  o  in  the  forged  signature  are  of  nearly  equal 
size,  tfie  o  finishing  informally  at  the  top  and  being  discon¬ 
nected  from  the  P  following,  while  upon  the  genuine  the  e 
and  o  are  markedly  disproportionate  as  to  size,  the  e  having 


FORGED  AND  GENUINE  SIGNATURES. 


1  75 


a  conspicuous  center  loop,  and  the  o  being  small  and  like 
an  a  in  fori  t 

In  the  forgery  the  P  is  in  its  form  after  the  manner  of 
the  genuine  P;  but  the  forger  seems  to  have  quite  overlooked 
the  fact  that  the  staff  is  a  thin,  light  .y-like  form  connected 
with  the  preceding  letter,  while  the  top  part  of  the  letter  is 
dwarfed  to  almost  microscopic  size  and  in  strange  dispropor¬ 
tion  to  the  other  portions  of  the  signature.  The  remaining 
part  of  the  forged  signature  is  composed  of  heavy,  formal 
letters  which  are  not  even  fair  imitations  of  the  light,  facile 
forms  and  movements  of  the  genuine.  Especially  is  the 
heavy,  stiff,  awkward  terminal  loop  of  the  n  in  “Gordon” 
in  very  sharp  contrast. 

The  rubric  underneath  the  forgery,  in  its  tremulous, 
irregular,  and  broken  lines,  and  heavy  single  blot  at  the 
center  between  its  parts,  is  in  striking  contrast  with  the 


FORGED  SIGNATURE. 


REDFIELD  VERSUS  REDFIELD. 


I  76 

less  conspicuous,  smooth,  graceful  strokes  under  the  gen¬ 
uine  signature  and  the  two  light  dots  at  the  center.  It  will 
also  be  observed  that  after  each  of  the  genuine  signatures 
is  a  period,  which  is  not  present  after  the  forgery.  After  a 
full  hearing  of  the  case,  the  will  was  pronounced  by  the 
Chancellor  to  be  a  forgery  by  Henry  Adams,  one  of  the 
alleg-ed  witnesses  to  the  will. 

Redfield  versus  Redfield. —  The  difficulty  that  con¬ 
fronts  a  forger,  exercising  even  phenomenal  ingenuity  in 
contriving  and  rare  skill  in  executing  a  forgery,  is  well  illus¬ 
trated  in  the  case  of  Redfield  v.  Redfield,  tried  a  few  years 
since,  at  Syracuse,  N.  Y. 

A  claim  was  presented  to  the  executors  of  the  estate, 
aggregating  nearly  $10,000,  in  the  form  of  a  receipt  given 
many  years  before  by  the  deceased  to  his  son  for  railroad 
stock,  to  be  held  in  trust  for  the  son’s  wife.  The  body  of 
the  receipt  purported  to  have  been  written  by  one  Z.  C. 
Foot,  an  attorney,  then  deceased,  and  to  bear  the  genuine 
signature  of  L.  H.  Redfield. 

The  receipt  was  submitted  to  Mr.  Foot’s  law  partner  and 
others  familiar  with  his  writing,  and  all  agreed  that  it  was  in 
Mr.  Foot’s  writing.  This  phase  of  the  case  seemed  there¬ 
fore  settled,  when  the  receipt,  with  numerous  genuine  signa¬ 
tures  of  Redfield,  was  submitted  to  the  writer  for  an  opinion 
as  to  the  genuineness  of  the  signature  upon  the  receipt. 

Upon  microscopic  examination,  it  was  apparent  that  the 
writing  in  the  body  of  the  receipt  was  manufactured,  as  was 
also  the  signature.  There  was  ample  evidence  that  the 
writing  in  the  body  of  the  receipt  had  been  first  drawn 
lightly  with  pencil  and  then  carefully  written  over  with  a 
pen.  In  something  over  ninety  instances,  portions  of  the 
pencil  lines  remained  visible  alongside  of  the  ink  lines, 
and  over  one  hundred  shades  on  the  letters  had  been 
touched  on  after  the  first  writing ;  besides,  the  forger,  not 
being  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  variations  of  Mr. 


FORGERY  ILLUSTRATED. 


1 77 


Foot’s  habit  in  writing,  repeated  too  exactly  the  forms  of 
certain  letters  and  words,  thus  imparting  a  typey  and  life¬ 
less  effect  to  the  general  appearance  of  the  writing.  As  a 
means  of  proof  and  illustration  of  the  spurious  character 
of  the  writing,  the  writer  requested  that  a  quantity  of  Mr. 
Foot’s  genuine  writing  be  furnished  him,  which  being 
done,  it  was  photo-lithographed,  when  words,  phrases,  and 
letters  were  cut  therefrom  and  arranged  and  gummed 
together  in  the  form  of  the  alleged  receipt,  thus  presenting 
Mr.  Foot’s  real  handwriting  as  it  should  appear  in  the 
receipt  if  written  by  him.  The  variance  between  the  gen¬ 
uine  and  forged  writings,  united  with  other  internal  evi¬ 
dence  of  forgery,  was  so  plain  that  when  confronted  with 
the  facts,  the  claimant  withdrew  the  receipt  and  the  case 
ended  with  a  verdict  in  favor  of  the  executors. 

On  the  next  page  is  presented  a  facsimile  of  the  forged 
receipt  in  juxtaposition  with  that  made  up  from  Foot’s 
writing.  As  specimens,  eight  of  the  retouched  letters  are 
indicated  by  numerals  on  the  plate. 

We  here  give  a  microscopic  representation  of  one  of  the 
over  one  hundred  retouched  shades  on  the  forged  writing. 
One  of  the  interesting  mistakes  of  the 
forger  was  in  the  method  of  making  the 
capital  /.  Mr.  Foot  always  commenced 
his  at  the  base-line  and  made  an  unshaded 
staff  on  an  up  movement,  which  admitted 
of  a  shade  on  the  finishing  stroke  at  the 
center ;  but  the  forger  commenced 
his  /  with  an  unshaded  initial  at  the 
center  and  finished  with  a  shaded 
down-stroke  for  the  staff,  touching 
in  the  shades  on  the  finishing  line 
at  the  center  afterward,  an  example 
of  which  is  shown  in  the  greatly 
magnified  representation  of  the  I 
in  the  right  margin. 


FORGED  RECEIPT. 


RECEIPT  MADE  UP  FROM 
FOOT’S  WRITING. 


RECEIPT  AS  f6oT  WOULD  HAVE 
WRITTEN  IT. 


i8o 


THE  MURDOCK  CASE. 


The  Murdock  Case. —  This  case  was  tried  at  Willows, 
California,  during  April  and  May,  1899.  The  jury  dis¬ 
agreed,  standing  six  to  six.  By  a  compromise  settlement, 
the  claimant  received  $50,000. 

William  Murdock  was  a  bachelor,  and  died  at  Willows 
on  January  8,  1894,  leaving  an  estate  valued  at  $400,000, 
which  was  devised  by  a  will  to  his  sister. 

After  the  will  had  been  probated,  Mrs.  Gawn  Murdock, 
whose  husband,  Gawn,  was  a  distant  relative  of  William, 
presented  to  the  executors  a  note  for  $100,000,  payable 
twenty  years  after  date,  with  interest  at  one  per  cent,  per 
month,  purporting  to  have  been  given  to  her  by  William  on 
September  5,  1877.  The  note,  with  accumulated  interest, 
amounted  to  $360,000.  Mrs.  Murdock  alleged  that  the 
note  was  made  payable  to  her  on  the  account  of  her  father- 
in-law,  Sam  Murdock,  in  part  consideration  of  large  sums 
of  money  he  had  from  time  to  time  loaned  to  William,  and 
a  further  consideration  of  his  (William’s)  love  and  affection 
for  Mrs.  Murdock’s  two  boys,  for  whose  benefit  the  note 
was  made  payable  to  her,  as  a  sort  of  trustee. 

The  history  of  the  note,  as  related  by  Mrs.  Murdock 
upon  the  witness-stand,  from  the  time  of  its  alleged  sign¬ 
ing  to  its  presentation  to  the  executors  for  payment,  is  most 
remarkable.  It  was  in  part  as  follows:  The  note  was 
wrapped  or  rolled  around  a  pencil,  and  placed  in  a  phial, 
which  was  corked  and  sealed.  This  phial  was  placed  in  a 
bottle  and  corked,  and  both  were  then  put  into  a  larger 
bottle,  which  was  also  corked.  The  whole  was  then  placed 
in  a  tin  can,  topped  with  a  saucer,  and  was  buried  in  the 
barn.  It  remained  buried  for  ten  or  eleven  years,  until 
1887  or  1888.  It  was  then  dug  up  and  taken  to  Sacra¬ 
mento,  and  was  there  seen  by  several  people,  as  a  proposed 
business  transaction  in  which  Mrs.  Murdock  was  interested 
occasioned  a  possible  use  for  the  note.  After  this,  the  note 
was  placed  in  possession  of  Gawn  W.  Murdock  and  put 
in  a  box,  which  box  was  placed  in  the  vault  of  the  Bank 


EVIDENCE  OF  FORGERY. 


l8  I 


of  Orland.  It  remained^  there  until  1S90,  and  was  then 
taken  by  Mrs.  Murdock  to  San  Francisco,  where,  up  to 
1894,  it  was  in  the  hands  of  a  person  there.  From  there 
it  was  placed  in  care  of  a  party  in  Ohio,  and  came  back 
into  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Murdock,  the  plaintiff. 

To  sustain  the  note,  the  prosecution  introduced  the  plain¬ 
tiff,  who  testified  that  she  had  written  the  note  at  the 
request  of  Sam  and  William  Murdock,  and  that  William 
signed  it  in  her  presence.  Gwan  Murdock  testified  that 
William  told  him  he  had  settled  with  Sam,  and  had 
given  Mary  (Gwan’s  wife)  a  note  for  $100,000.  Two  wit¬ 
nesses  swore  to  having  seen  the  note  in  the  possession  of 
Mrs.  Murdock  at  Sacramento  in  1888,  and  other  witnesses 
gave  testimony  that  William  had  at  sundry  times  admitted 
the  genuineness  of  the  note. 

The  executors  declined  to  pay  the  note,  as  to  do  so 
would  absorb  almost  the  entire  estate.  On  the  other 
hand,  they  denounced  it  as  a  forgery.  The  note  was  pho- 
tographed,  and  a  copy,  with  numerous  standard  signatures, 
was  submitted  to  the  writer  and  other  experts,  who  united 
in  pronouncing  the  signature  a  forgery ;  and  furthermore, 
that  two  signatures  to  deeds  from  William  to  Mary  Helen 
Murdock,  one  given  in  1872,  and  the  other  in  1890,  had 
served  as  copies  from  which  to  make  the  forged  signature  to 
the  note.  The  “  Wm.”on  the  note  had  evidently  been  traced 
from  the  “Wm.”  on  the  deed  of  1890.  The  “Murdock” 
embodied  peculiarities  in  both  the  signatures  to  the  deeds. 

The  “  Wm.”  upon  the  deed  of  1890  was  a  wide  depart¬ 
ure  from  the  ordinary  signature  of  Murdock,  owing  to  a 
partial  failure  of  the  ink  to  flow  from  the  pen  in  the  first 
effort  to  make  the  initial  part  of  the  W,  which  Mr.  Murdock 
invariably  made  by  a  separate  down-stroke,  as  is  shown  in 
the  first  of  these  cuts.  It  was  first  made  like  the  second 


182 


DISPUTED  AND  GENUINE  SIGNATURES. 


cut ;  but  the  ink  failing  to  How  until  the  pen  had  moved 
down  more  than  half  the  length  of  the  stroke,  (the  dry 
pen-furrows  being  perfectly  visible  under  a  microscope,  but 
not  to  the  unaided  eye,)  he  at  once  corrected  it  by  making 
another  stroke  (see  third  cut,  p.  1 8 1 ),  causing  a  peculiar  and 
unusual  hook  at  the  start.  The  second  stroke  intersected 
the  first  at  its  center  (this  is  plain  to  the  naked  eye)  and 
retraced  much  of  the  way  the  remainder  of  the  first  stroke, 
giving  it  an  irregular  and  ragged  appearance  not  habitual 
in  Murdock’s  signature,  thus  making  it  an  exception  in 
form  and  character  among  nearly  one  thousand  genuine 
signatures  that  were  introduced  for  comparison  at  the  trial. 
Excepting  the  unseen  dry  furrows,  the  peculiar  form  and 
ragged  line,  resulting  from  an  accident,  were  exactly  repro¬ 
duced  -upon  the  note.  This  will  be  seen  by  the  accompany¬ 
ing  cut,  at  the  top  of  which  is  presented  the  signature 
to  the  note,  followed  by  the  signature  to  the  two  deeds 
which  had  been  in  the  possession  of  the  holder  of  the  note 
since  the  time  of  their  date.  The  entire  word  “Wm.”  on 
the  note  was  an  exact  counterpart  of  the  same  on  the  deed 
of  1890.  Thus,  if  genuine,  Wm.  Murdock  perpetrated  on  the 
note  in  1877  the  exact  effect  of  an  accident  that  did  not 


GENUINE  SIGNATURES.  I  83 

occur  until  1890,  and  als^o  made  the  same  unusual  dash 
under  the  m  in  “  Wm." 

If  the  signature  to  the  note  is  not  genuine,  it  was  forged 
subsequent  to  the  giving  of  the  deed  in  1890.  Thirteen 


V  Skid’s. 

18T6. 


JHurdoek’-S 

V  Si£>’s. 

j  1%11> 


Jtfurdock’s 

1891. 


1890. 


184 


MOREY-GARFIELD  FORGED  LETTER. 


years  at  least  would  have  elapsed  from  the  alleged  making 
of  the  note,  during  which  time  it  was  found  that  Murdock’s 
signature  had  materially  changed  ;  for  in  two  hundred  and 
seventy-three  signatures  written  prior  to  December,  1879, 
every  dash  under  the  m  in  “  Wrn."  was  all  to  the  right  of 
the  body  of  the  W ’,  while  the  terminal  to  the  k  swept  down 
and  far  to  the  left  under  the  signature.  So  if  Murdock 
wrote  the  signature  to  the  note  in  1877  with  an  upturn  for 
a  terminal,  he  made  use  of  a  terminal  and  dash  which  did 
not  manifest  themselves  in  his  signature  until  over  two 
years  after  that  time.  It  must  have  been  a  prenatal  acci¬ 
dent.  In  1890,  the  up  terminal,  like  that  in  the  note, 
occurred  twenty-nine  times  in  thirty-nine  signatures,  and 
the  dash  under  the  m  in  “Wm.  ”  reached  into  the  body 
of  the  W  eighteen  times  in  thirty-nine  signatures.  (In 
the  cut  on  page  183  is  presented  Murdock’s  signature  as 
written  in  1876-77  and  1890-91.) 

Besides  these  peculiar  facts,  the  signature  to  the  note 
bore  all  the  internal  evidence  of  forgery  by  tracing  and 
drawing,  such  as  hesitating,  tremulous,  and  retouched  lines, 
and  the  abraded  surface  and  torn  fiber  of  the  paper  where 
the  signature  was  written. 

The  Morey-Garfield  Letter. — Very  few  cases  have 
arisen  in  this  country  in  which  the  genuineness  of  hand¬ 
writing  was  the  chief  contention,  and  in  which  such  momen¬ 
tous  interests  were  at  stake,  as  in  the  case  of  the  forged 
“  Morey-Garfield  Letter.”  It  was  such  as  to  arouse  and 
alarm  every  citizen  of  the  republic.  A  few  days  prior  to 
the  Presidential  election  of  1880,  in  which  James  A.  Gar¬ 
field  was  the  Republican  nominee,  there  was  published  in  a 
New  York  Democratic  daily  paper,  a  letter  purporting  to 
have  been  written  to  a  Mr.  H.  L.  Morey,  who  was  alleged  to 
have  been  connected  with  an  organization  of  the  cheap- 
labor  movement.  The  letter,  if  written  by  Mr.  Garfield, 
committed  him  in  the  broadest  and  fullest  manner  to  the 


INTERNAL  EVIDENCE  OF  FORGERY.  1 85 

conservation  of  cheap  labor  through  the  importation  of 
Chinese.  At  that  time  there  was  being  waged  a  most  wide¬ 
spread  and  determined  movement  on  the  Pacific  Coast  by 
the  white-labor  unions  against  the  so-called  Chinese  cheap 
labor,  and  it  was  the  obvious  purpose  of  this  letter  to  so 
arouse  the  labor  vote,  not  alone  on  the  Pacific  Slope,  but 
throughout  the  country,  as  to  turn  it  against  Garfield  in 
the  close  States.  Especially  was  this  hoped  for  in  Califor¬ 
nia  and  Oregon.  The  publication  of  the  letter  was  so  close 
to  the  time  of  the  election  that  it  was  hoped  that  it  would 
reach  the  Pacific  Coast  just  in  time  to  produce  its  damaging 
effect  upon  Garfield,  with  no  time  for  counter-action,  by 
proving  its  falsity. 

Immediately  upon  its  publication  it  was  submitted  to  the 
writer,  who  pronounced  it,  on  its  own  internal  evidence,  a 
fabrication  and  fraud,  while  its  comparison  with  Garfield’s 
letters  and  signature  further  proved  it  to  be  a  forged 
simulation  of  his  writing.  On  pages  186  and  187  are 
presented  facsimiles  of  the  forged  letter  and  one  written  by 
General  Garfield. 

The  forged  letter  bore  the  following  internal  evidences 
of  its  fraudulent  character  : 

First  —  The  three  instances  of  bad  spelling,  viz.,  the 
words  “  ecomoney  ”  and  “  Companys  ”  in  the  eighth  line, 
and  “  religeously  ”  in  line  twelve,  are  hardly  consistent  with 
General  Garfield’s  education  and  experience. 

Second — The  misplacing  of  the  dot  to  the  i  in  the  signa¬ 
ture  to  the  left  of  the  f  and  over  the  r  is  a  mistake  quite 
natural  to  a  hand  unaccustomed  to  making  it,  but  a  very 
improbable  and  remarkable  mistake  for  one  to  make  in  his 
own  autograph. 

Third — The  great  and  conspicuous  variations  in  the 
size  and  form  of  letters.  As  a  specimen  instance,  see  the 
three  t’s  in  the  fifth  line.  Variations  so  great  in  such  close 
connection  seldom  occur  in  anything  like  an  educated  and 
practiced  hand. 


i86 


FACSIMILE  OF  FORGED  LETTER. 


Fourth — The  very  long,  full,  and  differently  formed 
loops  in  the  first  lines  of  the  letter,  as  compared  with  those 
in  the  latter  part,  and  their  varying  size  and  shape  through- 


THE  MOREY-GARFIELD  FORGERY. 


0^4^:  a-  <Fdt~  z^r 


yS  ^  ■ 

_  - '  V.  

cALy4AA.  „ 

^  /u^Sy  JZ^Fc  ZFF 

(LfzA  *r  *** 

Al\,  /f, 

#y^FFt^  (  /Fr4F  'X*-' 

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&A~  — 


FACSIMILE  OF  GARFIELD’S  LETTER. 


187 


out  it  all,  present  extremes  too  great  and  forms  too  varied 
to  be  consistent  with  a  hand  so  trained  and  skilled  as  that 
of  General  Garfield  was  known  to  be. 

Fifth  —  The  widely  varying  degree  of  pen-pressure  is 
inconsistent  with  natural  writing. 

LETTER  WRITTEN  BY  GARFIELD. 

MErroTt. 3,  /  S’  SF, 

(F- 

JL 


A-U’'  tk- 


<J^  /(L^CZZ^cUk 

(G^>\  .  X  — €aLs%jLa{_ 


CF^nr~ 


AnA-jLk''  4*0 


6t/~-Yb~ . 


jYy/  ^  Jy 


EVIDENCE  OF  FORGERY. 


I  88 

Sixth  —  The  J  in  the  signature  has  a  slope  inconsistent 
with  the  remainder  of  the  signature  and  the  surrounding 
writing.  It  is  also  too  angular  at  the  top,  and  too  set  and 
stiff  throughout  to  be  the  result  of  a  natural  sweep  of  a 
trained  hand. 

We  may  safely  assume  that  if  General  Garfield  wrote 
the  “  Chinese  Letter  ”  the  previous  ]anuary,  there  was  at 
that  time  no  motive  to  write  it  in  any  other  than  his  ordi¬ 
nary  and  natural  hand  ;  and,  as  we  have  before  said,  we 
know,  by  an  extended  and  careful  comparison,  that  the 
letter  of  denial  is  in  his  perfectly  natural  hand  ;  these  two 
letters  should,  therefore,  be  consistent  with  each  other.  Are 
they  so  ?  ^ 

First  —  Take  the  general  pictorial  effect  and  appearance 
of  the  two  writings.  They  have  slight  general  and  no 
characteristic  resemblance. 

Second — Observe  the  unconscious  habit  with  reference 
to  the  base-line  of  the  writing  in  the  “  Chinese  Letter.” 

Third — The  t's  in  the  “  Chinese  Letter  ”  are  of  varia¬ 
ble  length  and  shade,  crossed  in  all  kinds  of  ways,  while 
in  the  other  letter  they  are  nearly  uniform  in  height  and 
shade,  and  are  uniformly  crossed,  when  single,  by  a  short, 
deliberate  line  near  the  top  and  to  the  right  of  same,  rarely 
touching  the  stem,  th  and  tt  only  being  crossed. 

Fourth — -The  loops  in  the  “  Chinese  Letter  ”  touch  the 
extremes  for  length  and  size,  and  are  utterly  without  uni¬ 
formity  or  consistency,  while  they  generally  lop  forward ; 
and  the  f's  and  p's  are  considerably  bowed.  In  the  genuine 
letter  the  loops  are  rather  short  and  thin,  frequently  closed, 
or  single  lines;  as  in  the  6's,  g's,  andjr’s,  there  is  very  little 
tendency  to  lop  forward,  while  f's  and  p's  are  nearly 
straight. 

Fifth  —  The  general  and  unconscious  habits  of  grouping 
and  spacing  the  letters,  as  manifested  in  the  two  writings, 
have  no  similarity.  In  the  “Chinese  Letter”  a  peculiar 


COMPARISON  CONTINUED. 


189 


and  striking  habit  of  grouping  will  be  observed  in  on  in 
“  Personal  and  confidential,”  line  one,  and  words  “  should,” 
lines  twelve  and  fifteen,  and  elsewhere,  which  does  not 
accord  with  General  Garfield’s  habit.  There  is  an  appear¬ 
ance  of  this  at  the  end  of  one  or  two  lines  in  his  letter,  but 
it  occurs  from  being  crowded  upon  the  margin  of  the  origi¬ 
nal  letter. 

Sixth  —  The  writing  in  the  “Chinese  Letter”  is  more 
compact  and  angular  than  in  the  other.;  then’s  are  entirely 
different  in  form  and  finish. 

Seventh  —  The  variable  slope  of  the  writing  in  the  two 
letters,  that  of  the  “  Chinese  Letter  ”  being  in  the  average 
about  seven  degrees  more  sloping  than  in  the  other. 

Eighth — -The  signature  to  the  “Chinese  Letter”  is  a 
clumsy  imitation  of  General  Garfield’s  autograph.  Observe 
the  stiff,  formal  initial  line  of  the  J — its  sharp,  angular  turn 
at  the  top,  absurd  slope  and  general  stiff  appearance,  while 
the  shade  is  low  down  upon  the  stem,  and  compare  with 
the  free,  flowing  movement  round  turns  and  consistent  slope 
of  the  same  letter  in  his  genuine  autograph.  We  might 
extend  the  comparison,  with  like  result,  to  all  the  letters  in 
the  signature,  and  to  a  multitude  of  other  instances  in  the 
writing  of  the  body  of  the  letter,  but  want  of  space  forbids. 

Many  persons,  and  some  professed  experts,  have  re¬ 
marked  what  appeared  to  them  striking  and  characteristic 
resemblances  between  the  “  Chinese  Letter  ”  and  General 
Garfield’s  writing. 

Before  commenting  upon  these,  we  would  remark  that  it 
should  be  borne  in  mind  that  if  the  letter  is  not  in  the 
genuine  handwriting  of  General  Garfield,  it  was  written 
by  some  person  whose  purpose  was  to  have  it  appear  so 
to  be.  That  being  the  case,  we  should  naturally  expect  to 
find  some,  even  more,  forms  than  we  do,  having  a  resem¬ 
blance  to  those  used  by  General  Garfield.  All  these 
resemblances  appear  to  us  to  be  either  copied  or  coinci- 


190  THE  CADET  WHITTAKER  CASE. 

dences  in  the  use  of  forms.  There  are  no  coincidences  of 
the  unconscious  writing  habit,  which  clearly,  to  our  mind, 
proves  the  “  Chinese  Letter,”  as  General  Garfield  well 
characterizes  it,  a  very  clumsy  effort  to  imitate  his  writing. 

I  ndeed,  the  effort  seems  to  be  little  more  than  an  endeavor, 
on  the  part  of  the  writer,  to  disguise  his  own  hand,  and 
copy  a  few  of  the  general  features  of  General  Garfield’s 
writing,  adding  a  tolerable  imitation  of  his  autograph. 

Cadet  Whittaker  Case. —  Whittaker  was  a  colored 
cadet,  at  the  U.  S.  Military  Academy,  at  West  Point,  New 
York.  On  the  morning  of  April  6,  1880,  he  was  found 
apparently  unconscious  in  his  room,  bound  and  gagged, 
with  his  ears,  hands,  and  feet  bleeding  from  cuts  which  he 
allegecl  he  had  chiefly  received  while  resisting  an  assault  in 
the  dark,  from  unknown  assailants,  presumably  fellow 
cadets.  Upon  restoration  to  consciousness,  he  produced  a 
note  of  warning  which  he  alleged  he  had  received  two  days 
before,  cautioning  him  against  some  supposed  bodily  injury. 
Sensational  reports  of  the  supposed  outrage  were  circulated 
by  the  press  throughout  the  country,  and  an  investigation 
was  demanded.  The  alleged  note  of  warning  was 
deemed  an  important  clew,  as  coming  from  some  one  who 
at  least  would  have  some  knowledge  of  the  perpetrators  of 
the  outrage. 

The  cadets  were  assembled  and  all  required  to  write 
from  dictation  a  note  containing  substantially  the  same 
words  as  did  the  note  of  warning,  and  sign  their  names. 
Written  pages  were  also  torn  from  the  exercise-books  of 
many  of  the  cadets,  thus  giving  a  specimen  of  writing  by 
every  cadet,  and  by  many,  two. 

p'ive  handwriting  experts  were  separately  called  to  West 
Point,  including  the  writer ;  into  the  hands  of  each  was 
placed  the  note  of  warning  with  three  hundred  and  seven 
different  pieces  of  writing,  which  were  identified  only  by  a 
number,  all  names  having  been  cut  from  the  several  writ- 

o 


NOTE  OF  WARNING  AND  WHITTAKER'S  WRITING.  1 9 1 

/ 

ings,  thus  precluding  any  possible  exercise  of  prejudice  or 
favor  on  the  part  of  the  experts.  With  astonishing  una¬ 
nimity  the  writings  selected  as  being  the  same  as  the  dis¬ 
guised  hand  in  the  note  of  warning  proved  to  have  been 
written  by  Whittaker  himself. 


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The  above  is  a  copy  of  the  note  of  warning,  made  up 
from  letters  and  words  taken  from  Whittaker’s  writing,  the 
numerals  indicating  the  number  of  the  exhibit  and  line  from 
which  each  was  taken. 


A  court  of  inquiry  was  convened,  before  which  the 
experts  and  other  witnesses  gave  testimony  respecting  the 
alleged  outrage,  and  after  a  careful  review  and  analysis 
of  the  testimony  reported  that  Whittaker’s  injuries  were 
self-inflicted,  and  that  the  so-called  note  of  warning  was 
written  by  Whittaker  to  himself. 

This  finding  by  the  court  of  inquiry  was  unsatisfactory 
to  Whittaker  and  his  friends,  and  they  succeeded  in  having 
a  court-martial  convened  in  New  York  City,  in  February, 
1 88 1,  which  continued  its  sessions  for  nearly  four  months, 
and  unanimously  found  Whittaker  guilty  of  perpetrating  the 
alleged  outrage  upon  himself  and  writing  the  note  of  warning. 


The  Alleged  Collum-Blaisdell  Forgery. — This  case 
will  justly  rank  among  the  celebrated  criminals  trials  of  this 
country,  alike  for  the  large  sum  involved  (nearly  $300,000), 
the  high  standing  of  the  accused,  and  the  herculean  efforts 
to  save  him  from  a  crime  of  which  he  was  confessedly 
guilty. 


COLLUM  - BLAISDELL  ALLEGED  FORGERY.  I  93 

Mr.  John  T.  Blaisdell  was  one  of  the  pioneers  of  the 
city  of  Minneapolis.  He  was  possessed  of  a  great  fortune, 
and  had  formerly  employed  Collum  as  his  attorney,  in 
which  capacity  he  had  an  abundant  opportunity  to  famil¬ 
iarize  himself  with  Mr.  Blaisdell’s  business,  as  he  was  most 
implicitly  trusted  by  the  millionaire. 

At  different  times  Mr.  Blaisdell  had  accommodated  Mr. 
Collum  by  indorsing  notes  amounting  to  some  ten  or  fifteen 
thousand  dollars.  Meeting  one  day  an  official  of  one  of 
the  banks  of  the  city  with  which  he  had  dealings,  Mr.  Blais¬ 
dell  was  asked  how  much  of  Collum’s  paper  he  had  indorsed. 
He  replied  that  he  had  indorsed  something  less  than  fifteen 
thousand  dollars.  To  his  astonishment,  the  banker  replied 
that  his  bank  alone  held  a  very  much  larger  sum  than  that. 
An  investigation  was  at  once  set  on  foot,  when  it  was  found 
that  notes  having  Mr.  Blaisdell’s  indorsement  were  out¬ 
standing  to  an  aggregate  sum  of  $283,000. 

A  conference  of  Mr.  Blaisdell’s  friends  and  bankers  hold¬ 
ing  the  forged  notes  was  called,  at  which  Mr.  Collum  was 
present  and  confronted  with  the  charge  of  forgery.  He 
confessed  to  the  forgery  and  expressed  his  readiness  to  be 
taken  to  the  penitentiary.  But  subsequently,  after  consult¬ 
ing  with  his  friends  and  attorneys,  Mr.  Collum  denied  that 
this  confession  was  true,  and  employed  four  of  the  shrewdest 
lawyers  to  be  had  to  defend  him  in  a  trial  for  forgery. 

On  the  stand  Mr.  Blaisdell  denied  having  written  the 
signatures  to  the  notes  on  which  the  indictment  was  based. 
Four  experienced  handwriting  experts  and  five  bank  cashiers 
pronounced  the  questioned  signatures  to  be  forgeries. 
Against  this  mass  of  positive  testimony  were  several  alleged 
experts  and  seven  bank  officers  (all  but  two  of  the  latter 
personally  interested  in  the  paper  in  dispute),  who  declared 
the  signature  genuine.  The  trial  lasted  over  four  weeks,  and 
resulted  in  a  disagreement  of  the  jury.  No  attempts  have 
ever  been  made  to  recover  on  the  notes  from  Blaisdell  as 
indorser. 


194 


EXHIBITS  FOR  COMPARISON. 


We  herewith  present  two  groups  of  signatures,  one  of 
Mr.  Blaisdell’s  and  another  of  the  alleged  forgeries. 

Group  i  represents  three  admittedly  genuine  signatures 
of  Mr.  Blaisdell,  which  were  used  as  standards  for  com¬ 
parison  by  the  witnesses  for  the  State.  It  will  be  noticed 
that  the  down-strokes  are  uniformly  broad,  shaded  lines. 
While  they  indicate  a  hand  that  is  heavy  and  unpracticed, 
they  are  fairly  uniform  and  consistent  with  each  other,  and 
are  in  all  essential  respects  a  harmonious  family  group. 


S.y.Mu'hkti, 


12)  ALLEGED  FORGERIES. 


COMPARISON  <3F  THE  WRITING. 


195 


Group  2  represents  three  of  the  alleged  forged  signa¬ 
tures.  Compare  the  down-lines  in  these  with  those  in 
Group  1.  It  will  be  noticed  that  in  this  group,  unlike  the 
others,  there  is  no  uniformity  of  shade  whatever,  some 
being  very  broad,  while  others  are  narrow  and  light.  In  this 
respect,  therefore,  they  are  patently  inconsistent  and  inhar¬ 
monious  as  between  themselves,  and  when  compared  as  a 
family  group  they  do  not  at  all  fraternize  with  Group  1. 
Note  the  hard  terminal  lines  as  compared  with  those  in 
Group  1.  Note  the  light,  wavy  lines  in  the  first  stroke  on 
the  a  s  and  d's  in  Group  2,  as  compared  with  the  heavy,  firm 
corresponding  lines  in  Group  1.  Also  the  staffs  of  the  d’s 
in  Group  1,  which  are  single  shaded  strokes,  while  in  the 
other  (as  is  more  particularly  apparent  upon  examination 
with  a  glass),  they  consist  of  light  interlacing  up-and-down 
lines,  while  the  apparent  shading  is  merely  a  flowing  over 
of  ink  between  these  lines. 

The  first  signature  of  Group  2  is  a  copy  of  the  alleged 
forged  signature  which  was  the  basis  of  the  indictment.  It 
was  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the  experts  for  the  prosecu¬ 
tion  that  the  alleged  forged  signature  was  made  by  tracing 
it  over  a  genuine  signature,  hence  in  its  general  appearance 
as  to  length,  slant,  spacing  and  outline  of  letters  it  would 
necessarily  conform  closely  to  Mr.  Blaisdell’s  average 
signature.  As  a  matter  of  fact  this  is  the  case,  but  it  does 
not  follow  that  a  tracing  would  preserve  the  quality  of  the 
line,  shading,  and  many  of  the  more  delicate  character¬ 
istics  of  the  genuine  signature,  and  it  was  upon  most 
patent  discrepancies  in  these  respects  that  the  experts 
reached  the  conclusion,  beyond  any  sort  of  doubt,  that  these 
signatures  were  spurious. 

As  we  have  said,  it  is  difficult  to  develop  these  points 
perfectly  by  comparison  of  cuts,  as,  of  course,  the  quality  of 
line  cannot  be  reproduced  to  represent  accurately  the  effect 
in  the  original  signature.  If  the  reader  will  take  a  piece  of 
glass,  place  upon  it  a  signature  written  on  ordinary  non-trans- 


196 


WHY  TRACINGS  ARE  NOT  EXACT  COPIES. 


parent  writing  paper  and  over  this  another  piece  of  paper 
of  the  same  quality,  and  hold  it  up  in  front  of  a  light, 
he  will  have  no  difficulty  in  seeing  the  general  outline 
of  the  signature,  and  by  taking  pen  or  pencil  can  dupli¬ 
cate  that  signature  precisely  as  to  general  direction  and 
outline.  Two  thicknesses  of  paper,  however,  will  prevent, 
even  by  the  use  of  the  strongest  light,  the  detection  of  all 
the  slight  peculiarities  of  waver  and  tremor,  and  the  minute 
changes  of  direction,  retracing  of  lines,  the  nice  variations 
of  shade  as  to  degree  and  location  that  invariably  occur, 
especially  in  such  signatures  as  these  in  question ;  nor  can 
he  with  any  degree  of  accuracy  simulate  the  quality  of 
line  which  is  an  individual  characteristic  of  every  writer. 
Mr.  Blaisdell’s  signatures  are  conspicuous  for  a  certain 
tremor,  as  will  be  seen  by  reference  to  any  of  them  here 
presented.  The  artful  forger,  therefore,  in  simulating  these 
signatures,  would  not  fail  to  try  to  simulate  the  frequent 
minor  changes  of  direction  which  this  tremor  produces.  As 
they  are  too  minute  and  delicate  to  be  observed  and  simu¬ 
lated  by  tracing,  he  must  rely  on  his  own  ingenuity  to  put 
them  in  so  as  to  resemble  the  genuine.  Now,  it  is  in  these 
precise  particulars  that  the  strongest  points  were  made  by 
the  experts  for  the  State.  For  instance,  in  the  forged 
signature  to  which  we  have  referred,  are  noted,  under  the 
microscope,  eighty-seven  distinct  changes  of  direction  of  line 
or  tremors.  In  the  five  genuine  signatures  that  follow,  the 
changes  of  direction  are  twenty  in  the  first,  twenty-five  in 
the  second,  fourteen  in  the  third,  thirty  in  the  fourth,  and 
twenty-five  in  the  fifth,  making  an  average  of  twenty-two 
and  two  fifths  —  eighty-seven  against  twenty-two  and  two 
fifths.  Very  decidedly,  then,  the  forger  overdid  this  matter 
of  tremor.  There  is  also  to  the  expert’s  practiced  eye  just 
as  wide  a  difference  between  the  genuine  and  the  spurious  in 
the  pictorial  effect  and  in  the  quality  of  line  before  noted. 


/ 


THE  BOTKIN  POISONING  CASE.  1 97 

The  Botkin  Case. —  The  peculiar  atrocity  of  this  crime 
marks  it  as  one  of  the  causes  cdlebres  of  this  country.  The 
paramour  of  Mrs.  Botkin,  who  resided  at  San  Francisco, 
California,  was  one  Dunning,  whose  wife  and  child  lived 
temporarily  with  her  father  at  Dover,  Delaware.  Dun¬ 
ning  went  East,  and  after  his  arrival  there  had  written  to 
Mrs.  Botkin  that  he  proposed  establishing  himself  in  New 
York  and  intended  to  provide  a  home  there  for  his  wife 
and  child.  Shortly  after  Dunning’s  departure  from  San 
Francisco,  Mrs.  Dunning  received  several  anonymous 
letters  in  a  disguised  hand,  purporting  to  come  from  friends 
in  that  city,  recounting  the  amours  of  Dunning,  and  advis¬ 
ing  her  to  secure  a  divorce  from  him,  for  which  (as  was  set 
forth  in  the  anonymous  letters)  there  was  ample  ground. 

This  scheme  did  not  succeed.  A  few  months  later 
Mrs.  Dunning  received  through  the  mail  a  box  of  candy, 
of  which  she  and  several  members  of  the  household  par¬ 
took.  Four  of  the  partakers  were  soon  taken  violently  ill, 
Mrs.  Dunning,  her  sister,  and  two  children.  In  a  very 
short  time,  the  two  women  died  ;  the  children  finally  recov¬ 
ered.  The  symptoms  were  proven  to  be  those  of  arsenic 
poisoning.  A  post-mortem  examination  was  held,  chemical 
analyses  of  the  contents  of  the  stomachs  made,  and  the 
remaining  candy  was  proven  to  contain  arsenic.  The  wrap¬ 
per  of  the  box,  containing  the  superscription,  a  short  note 
placed  inside  with  the  candy,  and  two  of  the  long  anony¬ 
mous  letters  had  fortunately  been  preserved.  The  box 
was  traced  to  San  Francisco,  and  the  place  of  its  purchase 
was  discovered.  Circumstances  soon  developed  that 
placed  Mrs.  Botkin  under  suspicion.  Specimens  of  her 
handwriting  were  procured  and,  with  the  anonymous  letters, 
were  placed  in  the  hands  of  experts  for  comparison,  who 
reported  that  they  were  all  written  by  the  same  person. 
Arrest  and  indictment  followed,  and  in  December,  1898, 
after  a  protracted  trial  and  an  able  defense,  she  was  con¬ 
victed  and  sentenced  to  prison  for  life. 


198 


THE  KENNEDY  MURDER  CASE. 


The  identity  of  her  handwriting  with  that  upon  the 
wrapper  of  the  box  and  the  note  inclosed,  was  chiefly  instru¬ 
mental  in  her  conviction. 

Below  we  present,  in  juxtaposition,  a  few  of  the  most 
striking  characteristic  forms  of  her  genuine  and  disguised 
writing,  as  they  were  presented  to  the  court  and  jury. 

Handwriting  experts,  Carl  Eisenschimel  and  Theodore 
Kytka,  together  with  the  writer,  testified  for  the  prosecution. 


Anonymous  and  Disguised.  Mrs.  Botkin’s  Writing. 


3>§>ppf)(p 

%-iPLri4~y- 


PjDp  P 

(2€0(££e 


13 


a 


Wi'frPfc? 

8<rPf£J3P/P 


Dr.  Kennedy  Case. —  On  August  15,  1898,  Emma 
Reynolds  was  murdered  in  a  room  in  the  Grand  Hotel, 
New  York.  On  her  person  was  found  a  check  for  $13,000, 
payable  to  her  order,  drawn  by  “  Dudley  Gideon  ”  on  the 
Garfield  National  Bank,  and  indorsed  by  S.  J.  Kennedy. 
When  the  check  was  taken  to  the  Garfield  National  Bank  by 
the  police,  it  was  found  that  “  Dudley  Gideon  ”  did  not  have 
an  account  there,  and  was  unknown,  being  undoubtedly  a 
fictitious  person.  The  indorser  of  the  check,  S.  J.  Kennedy, 
was  known  at  the  bank,  as  he  had  an  account  there. 

In  making  an  examination  of  the  room  where  the  mur¬ 
dered  woman  was  found,  Captain  George  McClusky,  Chief 
of  Detectives,  found  some  scraps  of  paper  in  the  waste- 


/ 


TRACING  THE  MURDERER.  1 99 

basket  and  on  the  fire-escape  just  outside  the  room. 
These,  when  pieced  together,  disclosed  the  address,  “  E. 
Maxwell  and  wife,  Grand  Hotel.”  On  the  reverse  side 
was  printed  “  R.  Phillips’  Milk  of  Magnesia,  12  oz.”  The 
writing  was  proved  to  be  Kennedy’s,  and  presumably  was 
given  to  Miss  Reynolds  that  she  might  make  no  mistake 
in  registering  by  a  new  and  fictitious  name,  as  directed  by 
Kennedy. 

The  handwriting  part  of  the  case  was  put  in  the  hands 
of  Mr.  Wm.  J.  Kinsley,  of  New  York,  who  called  Mr.  Ames 
to  his  assistance.  By  comparing  the  two  pieces  of  writing 
with  the  standard  writing  of  Dr.  Kennedy,  the  experts 
gave  it  as  their  opinion  that  all  the  writing  in  question  was. 
done  by  Dr.  Kennedy. 

The  police  theory  of  the  case  was  this :  Dr.  Kennedy 
had  done  some  dental  work  for  Miss  Reynolds,  and  through 
this  connection  had  learned  that  she  had  money,  and  that 
she  was  willing  to  gamble  on  the  horse-races.  He  then 
unfolded  to  her  a  plausible  scheme  by  which  much  money 
could  be  made  from  a  small  investment.  Believing  in  the 
success  of  the  venture,  she  withdrew  five  hundred  dollars 
from  her  bank,  which  sum  she  placed  in  Dr.  Kennedy’s 
hands,  to  carry  through  the  deal.  A  few  days  later  she 
engaged  the  room  in  the  Grand  Hotel,  registering  as  “  E. 
Maxwell  and  wife.”  She  said  that  Mr.  Maxwell  would  be 
there  in  the  evening.  Mr.  Maxwell  arrived  at  a  later  hour. 
He  was  identified  during  the  trial  by  several  of  the  hotel 
employees  as  Dr.  Kennedy. 

It  would  seem  probable  that  Dr.  Kennedy  gave  Miss 
Reynolds  the  bogus  $13,000  check  for  her  share  of  the 
profits  on  the  five-hundred-dollar  investment.  Her  famil¬ 
iarity  with  business  methods  (she  was  at  one  time  cashier 
in  a  Wall-Street  restaurant)  caused  her  to  request  Dr.  Ken¬ 
nedy  to  indorse  the  check.  He  complied  with  her  request, 
but  soon  saw  that  the  indorsement  was  a  fatal  error,  for 
the  presentation  of  the  check  at  the  bank  would  lead  to 


BOGUS  CHECK. 


he  indorsement  on  back  of  bogus  check.  Other  writings  having  the  same  number  are 
Those  designated  by  other  numbers  are  from  Kennedy’ s  writing,  given  for  comparison. 


SIGNATURES  OF  KENNEDY. 

(For  comparison  with  the  indorsement  upon  back  of  check.) 


THE  FIGURES  IN  THE  CHECK. 

(For  comparison  with  those  made  by  Kennedy.) 


Jllb- 


to. 


{  S  (_ 
'L^C 

\  6 


<  /sf,^Cs*~-v?r± 


7 


3?7f 


10. 


/". 

F- 

MU. 


il-OH-%. 


n>%k  y  ^ 

F-  ,,.:  - 

JaX/m, 


r  ,, 


Nos.  1226  are  from  check  ;  the  other  numbers  are  from 
Kennedy’s  writing,  for  comparison. 


HUNTER-LONG  FORGERIES. 


205 


his  exposure,  arrest,  and  downfall ;  and  it  is  believed  that 
he  went  to  his  home  in  Staten  Island,  made  the  lead-pipe 
bludgeon  with  which  the  murder  was  committed,  having 
arranged  the  Grand  Hotel  appointment  in  order  to  get  pos¬ 
session  of  the  bogus  check  by  whatever  means  that  might 
prove  necessary.  Her  satchel  was  cut  open  in  the  apparent 
search  for  the  check ;  but  the  important  document  was 
hidden  safely  under  her  corset,  where  it  was  found  by  the 
coroner  when  making  the  autopsy.  After  a  trial  notable 
in  the  annals  of  New  York  criminal  jurisprudence,  Dr. 
Kennedy  was  convicted  and  sentenced  to  die  in  the  electric 
chair. 

The  handwriting  first  directed  attention  to  Dr.  Kennedy, 
and  furnished  the  strongest  link  in  the  chain  of  evidence 
against  him.  The  illustrations  shown  herewith  are  fac¬ 
similes  of  the  face  of  the  check,  its  indorsement,  and  the 
“  E.  Maxwell  and  Wife  ”  note,  together  with  characteristic 
bits  of  the  standard  and  disputed  writing  juxtaposed,  to 
show  at  a  glance  the  points  to  be  compared.  The  photo¬ 
graphs  were  made  by  Dr.  Ernest  J.  Lederle,  City  Chemist, 
under  direction  of  Mr.  Kinsley,  who  arranged  them  for 
reproduction,  and  are  excellent  models  of  what  such  photo¬ 
graphs  should  be  both  in  arrangement  and  handling. 

Hunter-Long  Forgeries. — James  and  John  Hunter 
were  brothers.  They  and  James  Long  were  natives  of  the 
north  of  Ireland  and  were  schoolboy  chums.  They  came 
to  Philadelphia  over  fifty  years  ago,  where  they  engaged 
in  business.  The  Hunters  were  industrious,  economical 
and  enterprising,  and  in  their  joint  business  of  manufactur¬ 
ing  were  so  prosperous  as  to  amass  a  fortune  estimated  at 
over  a  million  of  dollars.  For  integrity  they  stood  above 
reproach.  In  fact,  John  Hunter  was  known  by  the  sobriquet 
of  “  Honest  John  Hunter,”  and  when,  a  few  years  since, 
frauds  were  discovered  in  the  management  of  the  muni¬ 
cipal  affairs  of  the  city,  and  a  committee  of  citizens  organ- 


206 


IIUNTER-LONG  FORGERIES. 


ized  for  the  purpose  of  correcting  frauds  and  abuses,  John 
Hunter  was  selected  by  the  committee  to  be  the  receiver 
of  taxes. 

Being  thus  called  from  his  office  for  a  great  part  of  the 
time,  the  business  management  of  the  Hunters  devolved 
upon  James,  who  engaged  in  large  outside  speculations,  in 
which  he  sustained  very  heavy  losses,  causing  embarrass¬ 
ment.  He  applied  for  relief  to  his  old  schoolboy  friend 
and  chum,  James  Long,  who  also  had  been  exceedingly 
prosperous,  first  as  a  manufacturer  and  afterward  as  a  banker, 
through  which  he  had  become  one  of  the  solid  financial  men 
of  Philadelphia.  James  Hunter,  in  appealing  to  his  friend 
Long,  represented  that  he  had  invested  large  sums  in 
promising  real  estate,  and  that  he  required  only  temporary 
aid  to  .enable  him  to  realize  large  profits  on  his  investment, 
and  thus  induced  Mr.  Long  to  give  him  accommodation 
notes  for  large  amounts,  aggregating,  in  1876,  over  $100,000. 
At  this  time,  in  consequence  of  the  difficulty  experienced 
in  collecting  the  security  notes  given  by  Hunter,  Mr.  Long 
became  doubtful  as  to  Hunter’s  financial  standing,  and 
urged  that  the  amount  of  the  loans  be  constantly  reduced. 
In  his  embarrassment,  Mr.  Hunter  had  fallen  into  the  habit 
of  meeting  the  notes,  as  they  fell  due,  by  issuing  new 
notes  in  their  stead  ;  but  Mr.  Long  demanded  that  each  new 
note  be  made  for  a  less  amount  than  the  one  which  it 
was  to  redeem,  Mr.  Hunter  advancing  the  difference.  By 
this  process,  the  aggregate  of  the  accommodation  notes  due 
Mr.  Long  from  the  Hunters  was  reduced,  in  1884,  as 
Mr.  Long  supposed,  to  between  $50,000  and  $60,000. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  trustees  of  the  Eighth  National 
Bank  of  Philadelphia,  at  which  Mr.  Long,  as  vice-president 
and  trustee,  was  present,  he  was  astonished  at  hearing  sev¬ 
eral  of  his  notes,  in  favor  of  James  and  John  Hunter, 
called  off  as  offered  for  discount.  These,  from  their  dates 
and  amounts,  he  knew  he  had  never  signed.  Investigation 
followed  at  once,  when  to  Mr.  Long’s  astonishment  and 


POINTS  IN  THE  TRIAL. 


207 


chagrin  the  notes  proved  to  be  forgeries  perpetrated  by  his 
friend,  James  Hunter. 

The  worthless  paper  amounted  in  the  aggregate  to  over 
$400,000,  and  the  culprit  hastily  fled  from  the  city  to  avoid 
arrest.  Mr.  Long  immediately  redeemed  all  of  the  genuine 
outstanding  notes  which  he  had  given  to  the  Hunters,  to 
the  amount  of  between  $50,000  and  $60,000.  Of  course, 
as  the  forged  notes  were  presented,  he  denied  his  signature 
and  declined  payment. 

Subsequently,  suit  was  brought  by  the  Union  National 
Bank  of  Mt.  Holly  against  the  Ninth  National  Bank  of 
Philadelphia,  to  recover  the  money  paid  for  one  of  the 
forged  notes,  which  it  had  purchased  as  an  investment.  The 
suit  was  brought  on  the  allegation  that  the  note  was  a  for¬ 
gery  sold  by  the  Ninth  National  Bank.  That  institution 
defended  the  suit  on  the  ground  that  the  signature  was 
genuine.  We  quote  from  a  report  by  the  Philadelphia 
Press : — 


“  Nearly  the  entire  morning  was  consumed  by  experts  Daniel  T. 
Ames,  of  New  York,  and  Thomas  May  Peirce,  of  this  city,  in  testifying 
that  the  signature  to  the  note  in  suit  was  a  forgery.  Mr.  Ames  took 
with  him  to  the  witness-stand  a  big  valise.  He  handed  the  court  clerk 
his  card  and  affirmed.  He  is  considered  one  of  the  best  experts  in  the 
country.  It  was  through  his  testimony  that  ex-Cadet  Whittaker  was 
suspended  from  West  Point.  When  the  Morey  letter  was  published, 
Mr.  Ames  was  the  first  to  pronounce  it  a  forgery,  as  was  afterwards 
proven.  He  told  Mr.  Fletcher  in  a  calm,  dignified,  and  soft  voice  that 
he  was  a  ‘  teacher,  author  and  publisher  ’  concerning  the  science  of 
writing,  and  was  an  expert  in  ‘  questioned  writing.  ’  He  unfastened  his 
valise  and  brought  forth  a  microscope  which  looked  so  much  like  a 
Gatling-gun  as  to  cause  Mr.  Fletcher  to  ask  if  it  ‘  went  off.’  ‘  No,  sir,’ 
replied  Mr.  Ames,  stopping  in  his  work  of  adjusting  the  lenses  and 
looking  at  Mr.  Fletcher  in  a  patronizing  way;  ‘  not  while  I  ’m  handling 
it.’  The  answer  caused  a  laugh  at  Mr.  Fletcher’s  expense.  Taking 
the  alleged  forged  note  and  a  genuine  signature  of  Mr.  Long,  the 
expert  traced  on  a  blackboard  a  copy  of  each,  and  explained  the  differ¬ 
ences  to  the  jury  and  let  them  see  for  themselves  what  the  signatures 
looked  like  under  the  lenses.  The  points  he  made  were,  that  while 


208 


REASONS  OF  THE  EXPERT. 


there  was  a  good  attempt  made  to  simulate  the  general  characteristics 
of  Mr.  Long’s  writing,  yet  there  was  a  decided  failure;  that  the  forger 
was  so  studious  in  his  efforts,  in  some  details,  that  he  made  a  blunder  in 
not  writing  closely  upon  the  base-line,  as  was  the  fact  in  all  of  Mr. 
Long’s  signatures;  that  the  forgery  showed  a  fine  knowledge  of  the 
science  of  writing,  which  is  not  seen  in  Mr.  Long’s  ;  that  under  a  micro¬ 
scope  the  writing  was  laborious,  and  the  unequal  distribution  of  the 
ink  showed  that  the  signature  was  written  by  ‘  hitches,’  and  not  as 
when  written  freely  by  Mr.  Long ;  that  nervousness  was  evident,  and 
that  the  point  to  the  terminal  of  the  .r  was  made  with  two  marks  of  the 
pen.” 

Immediately  after  the  close  of  Mr.  Ames’s  testimony 
(presumably  from  being  convinced  that  the  signature  was 
forged),  the  President  of  the  Ninth  National  Bank,  who 
sat  in  the  court-room,  announced  his  readiness  to  pay  the 
amount  of  the  note  with  interest,  which  he  immediately  did 
in  open  court,  and  the  suit  ended  without  the  defense  calling 
a  witness.  This  ended  all  efforts  of  the  holders  of  the 
forced  notes  for  their  collection. 

Testifying  by  experts  in  the  courts  of  Pennsylvania  was 
especially  difficult  from  the  fact  that  under  the  law  of  that 
State  an  expert  was  not  permitted  to  make  any  comparison 
between  the  disputed  handwriting  and  the  genuine,  being 
only  allowed  to  speak  from  the  internal  indications  of 
forgery. # 

The  following  reasons  were  presented  by  Mr.  Ames  for 
believing  the  signature  to  be  a  forgery.  By  comparison  of 
the  writing  in  the  body  of  the  note  with  that  of  the  signa¬ 
ture,  he  believed  that  it  was  all  written  by  one  hand.  This 
was  apparent  from  the  fact  that  certain  characteristics  of 
the  signature  were  coincident  with  corresponding  letters  in 
the  body  of  the  note. 

Yet,  while  the  signature  appeared  to  have  been  written 
by  the  same  hand  as  that  of  the  body,  there  were  many 
differences  which  he  could  not  harmonize  with  the  ordinary 

*  The  law  has  since  been  so  modified  as  to  permit  expert  comparison  of 
disputed  writing  with  that  proved  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  court  to  be  genuine. 


PECULIAR  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FORCE  OF  HABIT.  209 

habit  of  the  writer  as  manifested  in  the  filling  of  the  body 
of  the  note.  For  illustration  — in  the  body  of  the  note 
were  two  J' s  which  were  made  nearly  straight  and  central 
upon  the  base-line,  indicating  that  this  was  the  natural 
habit  of  the  writer,  while  in  the  signature  was  ay  of 
another  type,  and  made  above  the  base-line.  His  inference 
was,  that  the  J  in  the  signature  was  an  imitation  of  another 
writer,  and  that  the  forger,  when  departing  from  his  cus¬ 
tomary  habit  of  making  a  long  straight  J  central  upon  the 
base-line,  in  the  attempted  imitation,  by  sheer  force  of 
habit  carried  the  connecting  line  into  the  a  considerably 
above  the  base-line,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  examples.  This 
was  the  fact  with  all  the  forged  signatures.  The  form  of 
the  a  in  the  signature  was  the  same  as  in  “  James”  in  the 
body  of  the  note. 

The  m  was  of  the  same  character  as  the  m  in  the  date¬ 
line  of  the  note.  The  n  in  “  Lonof  ”  was  of  the  same  char- 
acter  as  the  n  in  the  word  “  Hunter”  and  elsewhere  in  the 
body  of  the  note.  The  t  in  the  signature  was  in  the  main 
the  same  as  that  in  the  body  of  the  note ;  but  to  the  letter 
was  appended  a  projection  which  was  not  in  accordance  with 
the  naturally  written  t  in  the  body  of  the  note ;  hence  the 
inference  that  it  was  a  simulation.  Moreover,  it  was  made 
in  two  parts,  having  first  been  ended  abruptly  and  then 
pieced  out,  in  order  to  give  it  the  point,  which  indicated 
that  it  had  been  manufactured  in  imitation  of  another 
form.  Theg'  in  “  Long”  was  a  very  long  full  loop  ending 
with  a  very  formal  hook,  while  in  the  body  of  the  note  the 
loops  are  short.  Hence  the  inference  that  the  g  in 
“  Long  ”  is  a  simulated  letter. 

The  whole  signature  is  written  considerably  above  the 
base-line.  In  Mr.  Ames’s  opinion,  this  might  result  from 
two  causes:  First,  it  is  apparent  from  an  examination  of 
the  naturally  written  /’s  in  the  body  of  the  note  that  it  was 
the  habit  of  the  writer  to  divide  these  letters  about  equally 
above  and  below  the  base-line,  and  to  join  the  /  to  the  a 


CONCLUSIONS  OF  EXPERT  EVIDENCE. 


21  I 


at  the  middle  of  the  staff,  the  a  resting  upon  the  base-line. 
The  fact  was  that  the  writer  in  simulating  a  signature 
wherein  the  J  was  made  entirely  above  the  base-line  was 
lead,  by  force  of  habit,  to  unconsciously  join  the  a  to  the 
J  at  its  center,  which  was  considerably  higher  up  than 
when  made  in  connection  with  the  habitual  form  of  the  J , 
thus  raising  the  a  above  the  base-line.  Beginning  thus, 
the  entire  signature  was  continued  in  that  manner. 
Second,  the  forger  being  particularly  intent  upon  the 
formation  of  his  letters  and  their  combination,  would  be 
quite  likely  to  overlook  the  mere  circumstance  of  the 
relation  of  the  original  signature  respecting  the  base-line, 
and  fail  to  properly  follow  it.  These  were  the  principal 
reasons  presented  by  Mr.  Ames  for  his  belief  that  the 
signature  to  the  note  was  a  forgery. 

By  comparison  of  the  genuine  signature  of  Mr.  Long 
with  the  forged,  the  evidence  is  greatly  strengthened,  viz : 
It  will  be  observed  by  reference  to  the  cuts  that  Long’s  J 
is  so  adjusted  to  the  a  as  to  place  it  and  the  entire  signature 
nearly  upon  the  base-line,  his  a  itself  being  a  very  long, 
narrow  closed  letter,  while  in  the  forgery  it  is  larger,  fuller, 
and  more  open.  Long’s  ms  and  n  s  begin  with  light 
strokes  closed  the  whole  length,  the  last  stroke  being  longer 
and  heavier  than  those  preceding,  while  those  in  the  for¬ 
gery  are  the  reverse,  the  first  strokes  being  the  longest, 
and  the  lines  closing  only  half  way.  Hunter  was  the  more 
systematical  writer  ,  and  overshot  Long  in  the  quality  of 
the  writing.  This  is  a  common  difficulty  when  a  more 
skilled  writer  attempts  to  forge  the  writing  of  one  less 
skilled  ;  and,  vice  versa ,  an  unskilled  hand  cannot  rise  above 
its  own  art  to  simulate  the  writing  of  one  far  superior  to  it  in 
artistic  skill.  These  facts  are  often  the  uncovered  tracks  by 
which  forgery  is  trailed  and  demonstrated.  It  will  also  be 
observed  that  Hunter  followed  his  own  more  upright  slant 
in  the  forgeries. 


212 


TIIE  ACME  OF  THE  FORGER’S  SKILL. 


Raised  Draft  by  Charles  Becker. —  It  is  probable 
that  no  finer  exhibition  of  the  former’s  skill  has  ever  been 
seen  in  this  country  than  that  represented  in  the  accom¬ 
panying  cut  of  a  draft  raised  by  the  notorious  forger,  Charles 
Becker,  from  twelve  dollars  to  twenty-two  thousand  dollars. 

A  draft  was  procured  from  the  Bank  of  Woodland, 
California,  on  the  Crocker-Wool worth  Bank  of  San 
Francisco  for  twelve  dollars,  and  then  raised  to  twenty-two 
thousand,  and  gold  coin  to  that  amount  was  received  on  the 
draft  from  the  Nevada  National  Bank,  also  of  San  Fran¬ 
cisco  ,  where  one  of  the  srang-  of  formers  associated  with 
Becker  was  well  known,  having  been  for  some  time  a 
depositor  with  the  bank. 

Through  the  persistent  efforts  of  the  Bankers’  Associa¬ 
tion,  aided  by  Pinkerton’s  National  Detective  Agency,  the 
forgery  was  traced  to  Becker  and  his  associates,  all  of  whom 
were  arrested  and  convicted,  except  Becker,  the  jury  before 
whom  he  was  tried  having  disagreed.  At  the  opening  of  a 
second  trial  he  pleaded  guilty,  and  gave  a  full  history  of  the 
forgery  and  the  method  by  which  it  was  perpetrated.  He 
received  a  sentence  of  two  years’  imprisonment  at  San 
Quentin,  California. 

The  method  of  performing  the  work  was  most  ingenious, 
and  was  executed  with  such  consummate  skill  as  to  well- 
nigh  defy  detection  by  the  most  skilled  and  astute  banker. 
Indeed,  but  for  the  outside  facts  it  is  highly  probable  that 
no  banker  would  have  ever  observed  anything  wrong  with 
the  draft.  But  when  it  was  returned  to  the  Bank  of  Wood¬ 
land,  calling  for  twenty-two  thousand  dollars  in  place  of 
twelve  dollars,  for  which  it  was  originally  issued,  the  fact 
that  a  forgery  had  been  committed  was  obvious.  The 
method,  however,  remained  largely  a  mystery  until  it  was 
discovered  by  most  elaborate  study  under  a  microscope. 

The  original  draft  had  all  the  usual  safeguards  against 
forgery  or  alteration,  being  upon  safety  paper,  —  that  is, 
being  printed  over  a  sensitive  tint,  which  was  supposed  to 


FACSIMILE  OF  THE  RAISED  DRAFT. 


2I4 


METHOD  OF  FORGERY. 


inevitably  show  the  slightest  erasure  or  change  made  upon 
its  surface.  Also,  the  figures  expressive  of  the  amount  of 
the  draft  were  stamped  out  in  two  places  by  a  complicated 
perforating  machine  supposed  to  be  impossible  of  imitation 
by  hand,  while  the  writing  expressive  of  the  amount  in  the 
body  of  the  draft  was  in  a  strong,  bold  hand.  The  perfora¬ 
tions  show  indistinctly  in  the  cut  except  where  they  are  on 
the  shade  of  each  end  of  the  lettering  of  the  name  of  the 
bank.  The  difficulty  was  not  alone  in  imitating  the  work 
of  the  stamping-machine,  but  to  get  over  and  utilize  as  far 
as  possible  the  perforations  already  there.  The  dollar- mark 
could  stand;  the  figure  i  must  be  changed  to  a  figure  2\ 
the  second  figure  2  could  stand;  and  then  must  be  added 
the  ciphers  for  the  larger  amount.  The  first  thing  done 
was  to  cover  the  space  occupied  by  the  /  with  a  most 
delicate  and  skillfully  applied  patch  of  paper  so  like  that  of  the 
paper  of  the  draft  as  to  pass  unnoticed.  This  done,  the  new 
perforations  were  to  be  made.  This  was  done  with  a  steel 
needle  the  exact  size  of  the  original  holes,  broken  square 
across.  The  draft  was  placed  upon  a  very  hard  surface, 
and  the  needle  was  carefully  placed  upon  the  spot  of  a 
desired  puncture  and  then  struck  a  light  blow  with  a  ham¬ 
mer,  which  made  a  clean-cut  hole.  The  figures  and  periods 
were  thus  stamped  out  in  exact  duplicate  of  those  made  by 
the  machine.  When  this  was  done,  the  figures  indicating  the 
amount  to  the  right  in  the  body  of  the  draft  were  changed 
—  the  /  to  a  2,  by  simply  adding  the  characteristic  top 
of  a  2  to  the  /  and  a  horizontal  loop  at  its  base,  the  straight 
line  of  the  /,  under  a  close  observation,  remaining  unchanged 
in  the  present  The  small  ciphers  for  the  cents  were 
then  removed  by  applying  acid,  and  the  required  ciphers 
were  put  in  their  place.  The  last  three  letters  of  the  word 
“twelve  ”  and  a  line  drawn  in  to  fill  the  unoccupied  space 
between  that  and  the  word  “  dollars  ”  were  also  carefully 
removed  with  acid,  and  the  changed  surface  of  the  paper 
was  restored  by  skillfully  painting  it  over  with  a  brush. 


PEN  AND  BRUSH  USED. 


2I5 


The  letters  nty  were  added  to  the  Twe  that  remained  of 
“  Twelve  ”  and  the  words  “  two  thousand  ”  were  written  in 
by  a  skillful  use  of  a  brush  and  pen,  and  the  job  was  done. 

Notwithstanding  the  consummate  skill  of  the  forger,  it 
will  be  observed,  by  comparing  the  added  writing  with 
what  remains  of  the  original  writing,  that  the  forger’s  habit 
was  injected  into  the  place  of  that  of  Dean.  Note  the  ns 
in  “  Twenty  ”  and  “  thousand.”  They  are  perfectly  formed 
us  with  straight  down-lines,  while  the  n  in  Dean  has  two 
curved  blind  loops — in  fact,  are  double  ee’s.  Also,  Becker 
wrote  on  his  own  slant,  which  was  much  more  upright  than 
Dean’s,  and  the  entire  character  of  his  writing  is  more  set 
and  formal,  betraying  the  delicate  touch  and  finish  of  the 
artist  rather  than  the  informal  dash  of  the  busy  cashier. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 


THE  TRIAL  OF  ROLAND  B.  MOLINEUX  IN  NEW  YORK  FOR  THE  MUR¬ 
DER  OF  MRS.  KATHARINE  J  ADAMS,  BY  MEANS  OF  POISON 
SENT  THROUGH  THE  UNITED  STATES  MAIL. 

No  criminal  trial  in  this  country  has  extended  over  a 
longer  period  of  time,  or  has  been  more  fiercely  contested, 
than  that  ol  Roland  B.  Molineux,  just  closed  in  New  York. 
The  trial  commenced  with  the  impaneling  of  the  jury  on 
November  14,  1899,  and  continued  until  February  11th, 
1900,  when  a  verdict  of  guilty  was  rendered,  which  now 
means  electrocution,  or  death  in  the  electric  chair. 

All  that  wealth  and  high  social  and  political  influence 
could  possibly  do  in  behalf  of  the  accused  was  done. 

In  the  way  of  a  history  of  the  case  we  can  do  no  better 
than  to  present  it  in  the  words  of  Assistant  District- 
Attorney  Osborne  in  his  very  able  opening  address  to  the 
jury.  He  said: — 

“  Oil  December  28,  1898,  this  community  was  shocked  by  the  dis¬ 
covery  that  a  woman  had  been  poisoned.  She  was  a  woman  who  had 
lived  on  the  west  side  of  New  York  with  her  daughter,  a  Mrs.  Rogers, 
with  a  grown  son,  and  there  was  an  occupant  in  the  house —  Harry  S. 
Cornish  —  a  connection,  by  marriage,  of  the  family.  They  had  for¬ 
merly  lived  together  in  Hartford,  Connecticut. 

“On  December  24th  of  last  year,  just  the  day  before  Christmas, 
Harry  S.  Cornish,  at  the  Knickerbocker  Athletic  Club,  received  a  pack¬ 
age  through  the  mail.  This  package  was  taken  by  him  to  his  desk,  and 
in  the  presence  of  other  persons  he  opened  it. 

“It  was  a  Christmas  present,  no  doubt,  he  thought.  There  was  a 
Tiffany  box  and  a  blank  envelope.  Inclosed  in  the  box  was  a  silver 
article,  a  bottle-holder,  and  in  it  was  what  purported  to  be  a  bromo- 


THE  POISON  PACKAGE. 


217 


seltzer  bottle.  There  were  some  pieces  of  paper  in  the  box,  and  the  box 
itself  was  wrapped  up  in  manilla  paper.  On  it  was  written  the  address, 

‘  Mr.  Harry  Cornish,  Knickerbocker  Athletic  Club,  Madison  Ave.  and 
Fourty-fifth  St.,  New  York  City.’ 

“  Cornish  carried  this  box  and  its  contents  home  on  the  evening  of 
December  27th.  These  dumb  instruments  one  by  one  will  make  up 
this  story.  It  was  at  the  request  of  Mrs.  Adams’s  only  daughter,  Mrs. 
Rogers,  that  Cornish  gave  to  Mrs.  Adams,  at  the  time  when  she  was 
preparing  the  breakfast, — this  good  old  woman  who  was  acting  as  the 
cook  next  morning, — the  fatal  dose,  and  after  partaking  of  it  she  com¬ 
plained  of  a  bitter  taste,  and  Cornish  tasted  it  himself.  Mrs.  Adams 
was  immediately  taken  alarmingly  ill. 

“Then  the  doctors  were  hurriedly  called,  and  within  half  an  hour 
afterward  Mrs.  Adams  was  dead.  Cornish  went  to  the  Knickerbocker 
Athletic  Club.  His  life  at  one  time  was  almost  despaired  of  Here  was 
a  man  —  Cornish-— who  preserved  the  bottle-holder,  the  envelope,  the 
paper,  the  writing,  —  he  took  good  care  of  it, — and  in  broad  daylight  he 
had  administered  the  fatal  dose. 

“  I  wish  to  say  here  that  if  there  ever  was  a  man  in  this  wide  world 
who  has  been  thoroughly  investigated  by  myself  and  by  Captain  Mc- 
Clusky,  the  chief  of  detectives,  it  is  this  Harry  S.  Cornish,  and  I  will 
say  that  we  satisfied  .ourselves  that  Cornish,  who  gave  the  fatal  dose, 
did  not  do  so  with  any  guilty  intent. 

“  Now,  let  us  see  what  Captain  McClusky  had  in  his  possession  at  the 
time  he  started  out  to  investigate  the  mystery  surrounding  the  murder 
of  Mrs.  Katharine  J.  Adams.  He  knew  that  a  woman  had  been  poi¬ 
soned  ;  that  Cornish  gave  her  that  poison  ;  and  he  had  before  him  a 
bottle-holder,  an  envelope  and  box,  and  the  written  address  upon  the 
wrapper  of  the  poison  package ;  from  those  articles  he  must  find  the 
poisoner. 

“  How  did  he  proceed?  Captain  McClusky  investigated  each  object 
step  by  step.  And  I  say  to  you,  gentlemen,  that  if  you  will  follow  me  in 
the  evidence  which  Captain  McClusky  gave  to  me,  you  will  each  one 
of  you  become  a  judicial  Frankenstein,  and,  little  by  little,  you  will  be 
able  to  construct  the  man  who  murdered  this  woman. 

“In  this  evidence  you  will  see  the  body,  the  soul,  the  features  of 
this  poisoner,  and  if  you  do  not,  then  you  will  acquit  this  defendant. 
This  poisoner  struck  from  a  distance.  He  said  to  himself,  ‘  It  is  impos¬ 
sible  for  anybody  to  trace  this  poison  to  me.  I  have  so  disguised  the 
handwriting  that  nobody  can  trace  that  to  me.  The  silver  bottle- 
holder  and  the  poison  were  obtained  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  be  traced 
to  me.’ 


2l8 


A  RARE  POISON. 


“  Cyanide  of  mercury  is  a  chemical  rarity.  There  are  only  thre- 
cases  oi  such  poison  on  record.  You  may  be  sure  at  the  outset  that 
you  cannot  trace  that  cyanide  of  mercury  to  him,  nor  that  silver  bottle- 
holder,  because  they  are  monuments  toward  a  pathway  on  which  one 
can  read  the  way  of  the  poisoner. 

“  But  this  poisoner  no  doubt  felt  that  he  had  discovered  the  secret 
to  poison  without  detection.  Captain  McClusky  had  no  difficulty  in 
tracing  the  bottle-holder  to  the  store  of  Hartegen  &  Company,  Newark, 
New  Jersey ;  but  you  will  not  be  able  to  trace  the  body  of  the  poisoner 
to  that  store.  You  must  be  able  to  trace  the  mind  of  the  poisoner  to 
the  store  where  the  bottle-holder  was  bought.  It  was  traced  to  Newark. 
In  order  to  trace  the  cyanide  of  mercury  you  must  find  out  who  uses 
this  poison. 

“  Now,  in  order  to  find  the  man  who  sent  this  bottle-holder  and  the 
cyanide  of  mercury,  you  must  find  the  man  who  had  a  business  in 
Newark,  and  who  knew  about  cyanide  of  mercury,  and  who  handled 
it  in  his ,  business.  That  is  the  kind  of  a  man  Captain  McClusky  had 
to  look  for.  Consequently,  you  must  look  for  a  chemist  who  is  engaged 
in  the  manufacture  of  colors. 

“  The  man  who  wrote  the  address  upon  the  poison  package  did  not 
try  to  imitate  anybody  else’s  characteristics,  but  he  did  try  to  leave  out 
of  his  writing  all  his  own  characteristics.  Did  he  do  so  ?  That  is  the 
question  for  us  to  decide. 

“  The  District- Attorney  is  going  to  make  his  garment  out  of  the 
stitches  which  he  dropped.  In  writing  the  address  the  poisoner  dropped 
the  first  stitch  and  left  enough  of  his  characteristics  to  show  us  who 
he  is. 

“We  must  now  look  fora  man  who  had  a  motive  to  dispose  of 
Cornish.  We  must  look  for  a  man  who  lived  partly  in  Newark  and 
partly  in  New  York.  At  once  everybody  began  to  investigate  as  to 
who  it  was  who  hated  Cornish  —  who  had  a  long-standing  hatred  for 
him.  If  you  gentlemen  of  the  jury  will,  after  hearing  all  of  this  evi¬ 
dence,  say  we  will  not  convict,  then  what  will  you  say  to  the  criminals 
at  large? 

“  You  would  then  turn  society  over  to  the  criminals.  But  fortunately 
this  is  not  the  case,  because  this  poisoner  dropped  more  stitches, — yes, 
a  spool  of  thread, — and  this  case,  which  at  one  time  was  a  mystery,  is 
actually  the  simplest  case  I  have  prepared  in  my  life;  and  if  you  don’t 
say  so,  I  shall  be  very  much  disappointed. 

“  Now,  Captain  McClusky  had  a  talk  with  the  physician  who  attended 
Cornish,  and  who  had  treated  another  man  who  had  suffered  from  cya¬ 
nide  of  mercury  poisoning,  and  this  man  was  Henry  C.  Barnet. 


BARNET  ANOTHER  VICTIM  OF  POISON.  219 

“  Here  is  another  name  in  this  case.  Who  is  Barnet?  How  is  it  that 
his  name  is  introduced  into  this  case?  Barnet  lived  at  the  Knicker¬ 
bocker  Athletic  Club.  Barnet  received  poison  mixed  with  Kutnow 
powder,  from  which  he  had  died  only  a  few  weeks  prior  to  the  death  of 
Mrs.  Adams.  Barnet  received  this  poison  in  the  mail.  Now,  here  we 
have  the  use  of  the  mail,  cyanide  of  mercury,  and  the  Knickerbocker 
Athletic  Club. 

“  There  is  not  a  man  on  the  earth  so  stupid  wrho  would  not  know 
that  the  same  man  who  perpetrated  one  crime  committed  the  other. 

‘  ‘  If  this  defendant  does  not  fit  the  description  I  give  of  this  poisoner, 
then  Mr.  Weeks  [the  attorney  for  the  prisoner]  ought  to  be  pleased. 
I  tell  you,  produce  the  whole  garment  and  you  will  find  the  guilty  man. 
On  December  20,  1898,  there  was  a  letter  sent  to  the  Kutnow  people 
asking  that  a  sample  of  their  powder  be  sent  to  H.  Cornish  at  No.  1620 
Broadway.  Now  we  see  the  light  of  day. 

“  This  spool  of  thread  begins  to  unwind.  He  wrote  to  the  Marsden 
Remedy  Company,  in  this  city,  and  in  asking  for  treatment  gave  the 
company  a  complete  description  of  himself.  He  inclosed  five  dollars, 
and  asked  them  to  send  to  him  the  remedy,  and  they  sent  to  him  a 
blank  form  which  he  had  to  fill  out;  and  here  we  have  the  man  who 
committed  these  double  crimes  fully  describing  himself. 

“There  is  no  doubt  that  the  man  who  killed  Barnet  also  sent  the 
poison  to  Cornish.  Everybody  must  see  that.  Now,  what  have  we 
on  this  paper  which  this  poisoner  filled  out?” 

“I  object!”  shouted  Mr.  Weeks.  “It  is  unfair  to  this  client  for 
the  District- Attorney  to  make  statements  of  this  character  in  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  the  jury.” 

(Recorder  Goff  replied  that  the  jury  must  not  be  prejudiced  against 
the  defendant  by  any  statement  of  the  District- Attorney;  it  is  not  for 
them  to  infer  that  the  person  who  poisoned  Barnet  poisoned  Mrs. 
Adams.) 

Mr.  Osborne  continued  : — “Now,  I  must  find  this  man  —  the  poi¬ 
soner.  Here  the  diagnosis  blank  shows  that  he  gave  his  age  as  thirty-one. 
We  cannot  look  for  anybody  who  is  over  thirty-one  or  who  is  under 
thirty-one.  If  this  prisoner  at  the  bar  does  not  fit  in  that  respect,  we 
do  not  want  him.  I  must  show  you  a  man  of  that  age. 

“  Then  we  find  that  the  man  says  he  was  contemplating  matrimony. 
Now,  we  must  find  such  a  man.  All  married  men  are  excluded.  Then 
there  is  a  query,  ‘Was  there  any  consumption  in  the  family?’  which  is 
answered  ‘Yes.’  We  must  find  a  man  in  whose  family  there  was  con¬ 
sumption. 

“  Then  we  must  find  a  man  who  measures  thirty-seven  inches  around 


220 


CHARACTERISTICS  IN  WRITING. 


the  chest  and  thirty-two  inches  around  the  waist.  Smaller  men  or  bigger 
men  are  out  of  the  question.  Then  there  is  a  query  as  to  complexion 
— answer,  ‘Yellow.’  Look  for  such  a  man.  Then  we  must  find  a  man 
who  mails  his  letters  at  the  General  Postoffice  at  5  P.M.  on  week-days 
and  earlier  on  Saturdays.” 

(Mr.  Osborne  announced  that  he  would  now  go  into  the  matter  of  hand¬ 
writing.  He  called  one  of  his  assistants,  who  started  to  put  up  an  easel 
stand,  upon  which  a  blackboard  was  to  be  placed.  Mr.  Weeks  objected 
to  Mr.  Osborne’s  illustrating  to  the  jury  upon  a  blackboard  matters 
in  connection  with  handwriting,  and  Recorder  Goff  sustained  him.) 

“  I  wish  to  say  [continued  Mr.  Osborne,  shouting]  that  any  expert 
in  this  country  —  every  expert  in  America  —  including  the  expert  who 
appears  here  for  the  defense,  will  testify  that  the  ‘  H.  Cornish  ’  and  the 
‘  H.  C.  Barnet  ’  letters  and  the  address  on  the  poison  package  were 
written  by  the  same  man. 

“  The  experts  will  tell  you  the  peculiarities  of  the  handwriting  — 
they  will  very  plainly  show  you  that  there  are  enough  characteristics 
left  to  prove  that  all  three  (the  address  upon  the  poison  package,  the 
Barnet  and  Cornish  letters)  were  written  by  the  same  man;  and  if  I  do 
not  show  all  of  this  to  be  a  fact,  then  this  defendant  will  walk  out  of 
court  a  free  man. 

‘‘When  you  and  I  fail  to  write  like  a  copybook,  then  you  and  I 
show  our  characteristics.  Now,  take  the  letter  a,  for  instance  —  a,  in 
the  word  ‘trial.’  [See  cut  No.  7,  on  page  228.  Mr.  Osborne  wrote 
a  letter  a  with  his  fingers  in  the  air.  ]  The  prisoner  wrote  ‘  trial  ’  thus  — 
‘tri-al.’  There  was  a  break  between  the  i  and  the  a.  He  does  not 
make  the  upward  stroke  to  connect  the  i  and  the  a,  but  simply  stops  at 
the  letter  z,  and  then  begins  a  new  a,  as  though  there  were  two  words 
‘ tri ’ -  ‘ah’  In  ‘confidential’  [See  cut  No.  8,  on  page  230.]  we  find  there 
is  a  break  between  the  i  and  the  d.  In  ‘  which  ’  there  is  a  break 
between  the  z  and  the  c.  Thus  you  see  there  is  always  a  break  after  an  z 
when  it  is  before  an  a,  c,  d,  and  g,  as  in  ‘  oblige. 

“  Look, — look,  I  say,  at  all  the  handwriting  since  Adam  or  the  Phoe¬ 
nicians,  or  whoever  invented  handwriting,  and  show  me  a  man  who 
makes  these  breaks.  It  is  the  most  astonishing  thing.  Now,  the  man  who 
wrote  these  letters  did  not  know  he  had  these  characteristics,  and  if  I 
find  the  man  who  wrote  the  Barnet  letter  I  have  the  man  who  intended 
to  kill  Cornish. 

“Then  we  find  that  he  has  three  ways  of  writing  the  word  ‘oblige.’ 
[See  cuts  No.  3,  page  224;  No.  4,  page  225;  and  No.  10,  page  232.] 
And  if  I  don’t  find  the  man  who  has  three  ways  of  writing  the  word 
‘oblige,’  then  I  do  not  find  the  man  who  is  guilty  of  this  murder. 


BARNET  AND  CORNISH  WRITING. 


221 


When  he  writes  the  word'  oblige’  slowly,  he  writes  it  ‘  obli-ge,’  with  a 
break  between  the  i  and  the  g.  When  he  is  in  a  hurry  he  writes 
‘oblige’  ‘obli-g”  with  a  little  tick  at  the  end,  indicating  the  c,  but 
does  not  write  the  <?,  and  then  he  writes  '  oblige  ’  at  times  ‘  obli —  ’  and 
makes  the  g  like  a  q  with  a  little  tick  at  the  end. 

‘  ‘  This  letter  was  written  on  blue  paper  with  three  crescents,  manu¬ 
factured  by  Whiting  &  Company,  and  sold  in  four  department  stores, 
and — now  mark  me,  gentlemen  —  in  two  stores  in  Newark,  and  one  of 
these  stores  ought  to  be  a  store  which  the  poisoner  had  in  his  mind. 
One  was  that  of  Plum  &  Company,  and  the  other  of  Hayne  &  Com¬ 
pany,  in  Newark.  In  December,  1898,  a  man  had  taken  a  letter-box 
at  No.  1620  Broadway  under  the  name  of  Harry  Cornish, — but  he  was 
not  Harry  Cornish.  And  there  was  a  letter  written  to  Detroit,  and  one  to 
Frederick  Stearns  &  Company,  in  Detroit,  and  another  letter  written  to 
the  Von  Mohl  Company,  in  Cincinnati. 

“  The  Von  Mohl  Company  were  manufacturers  of  patent  medicines, 
and  the  letter  sent  to  them  asked  for  a  sample  of  their  medicines.  An¬ 
other  letter  was  an  inquiry  about  A.  A.  Harpster,  saying  that  Harpster 
had  applied  to  Harry  Cornish  for  a  position  as  collector,  and  that  all 
information  sent  to  Harry  Cornish,  No.  1620  Broadway,  concerning  the 
said  Harpster,  would  be  considered  as  confidential.  Why  did  the 
writer  inquire  about  Harpster  —  amiable,  calm,  quiet  Harpster  —  more 
stout  than  anything  else  ? 

“  Now,  we  must  look  for  a  man  who  had  reason  to  dislike  Harpster. 
Harpster  some  time  before  had  been  an  employee  in  the  Knickerbocker 
Athletic  Club  at  the  time  when  Cornish  and  Barnet  were  there  together. 
Now,  you  must  find  a  man  —  the  poisoner —  who  knew  all  three  of  these 
men  at  one  time.  Take  these  three  men.  They  all  moved  in  different 
social  circles,  and  the  only  thing  that  bound  them  together  was  their 
common  interest  in  the  Knickerbocker  Athletic  Club. 

“We  have  reached  the  point  now  in  our  investigation  where  the 
silver  bottle-holder  was  discovered  at  Hartegen  &  Company,  silver¬ 
smiths,  of  Newark.  The  letter-box  was  hired  on  December  21st,  the 
same  day  the  bottle-holder  was  purchased.’’ 

(Mr.  Osborne  then  explained  at  length  the  various  methods 
employed  by  dealers  in  patent  medicines  as  to  preserving  the  letters 
they  received  from  their  clients.) 

“  The  man  [he  said]  who  once  seeks  advertisements  for  a  remedy 
is  forever  marked  by  firms  dealing  in  such  remedies.  In  other  words, 
he  has  acquired  what  is  known  as  the  patent-medicine  habit,  one  that  is 
bad  to  contract  and  one  that  cannot  be  lost.  We  will  show  to  you  that 
the  man  who  wrote  this  and  other  letters  was  not  H.  C.  Barnet. 


222  CIRCUMSTANCES  WHICH  THE  POISONER  MUST  FIT. 


‘  ‘  All  over  the  country  we  have  found  letters  asking  for  certain  kinds 
of  patent  medicines.  The  letters  signed  ‘  H.  Cornish  ’  were  dated 
from  the  letter-box  place,  at  No.  1620  Broadway.  Other  letters  were 
found  signed  ‘  H.  C.  Barnet,’  asking  for  the  same  kind  of  medicine,  and 
the  writer  of  these  letters  asked  that  the  samples  be  sent  to  Louis 
Heckmann’s  letter-box  place,  in  Forty-second  Street. 

“  On  May  28th  a  man  went  to  this  place  and  rented  a  letter-box  in 
the  name  of  H.  C.  Barnet.  We  will  show  that  this  man  was  not  H.  C. 
Barnet.  By  singular  coincidence  another  letter  signed  Barnet  was  also 
sent  to  the  Von  Mohl  Company  in  Cincinnati,  to  whom  a  letter  signed 
‘  H.  Cornish  ’  had  also  been  sent.  All  of  these  letters  asked  for  medi¬ 
cines  of  one  kind. 

“  The  general  scheme  of  the  two  murders  was  the  same:  letter-boxes 
were  taken  in  the  names  of  the  two  men;  the  same  poison  was  sent  to 
them  both;  the  mails  were  used  in  sending  the  poison.  They  were 
generated  by  the  same  brain,  the  same  ideas — the  adopting  of  the 
names,  the  letter-boxes,  the  remedies,  cyanide  of  mercury,  the  United 
States  mails.  Here  was  the  scheme. 

“  Take  the  name  of  your  enemy.  Take  the  letter-box  in  the  same 
name,  and  dead  men  tell  no  tales.  Barnet  could  not  come  back  from 
his  grave  and  say,  ‘I  never  took  another  man’s  name;  I  never  wrote 
for  these  remedies.’ 

1  ‘  The  poisoner  used  that  scheme  in  both  cases,  but  here  again  we 
find  that  this  poisoner  did  not  have  universal  knowledge,  for  he  dropped 
another  strand  of  this  spool  of  thread. 

“  Who  in  every  conceivable  way-— residence,  business,  environment, 
hatred,  handwriting — complies  with  the  absolute  description  of  the 
poisoner?  There  is  but  one  human  being  on  the  face  of  this  whole 
earth,  and  that  man  is  the  defendant  at  the  bar.” 

H.  C.  Barnet,  whose  name  was  brought  into  prominence 
during  the  trial,  was  a  fellow  member  of  the  Knicker¬ 
bocker  Athletic  Club  with  Molineux,  Cornish,  and  Harp- 
ster.  It  appeared  from  the  evidence  adduced  at  the  trial 
that  Barnet  was  a  favored  rival  lover  of  Molineux  for  the 
woman  whom  Molineux  married  nineteen  days  after  Bar¬ 
net’s  death. 

At  the  time  of  Barnet’s  death,  diphtheria  was  attributed 
as  the  cause;  but  after  the  death  of  Mrs.  Adams  from  poi¬ 
son  evidently  intended  for  Cornish,  the  circumstances  of 


No. 


BY  MOLINEUX  FROM  DICTATION  —  USED  AS  A  STANDARD  FOR  COMPARISON  OF  WRITING  IN  THE  CASE, 


No.  3. 

MOLINEUX’S  NATURAL  HANDWRITING — USED  AS  A  STANDARD  FOR  COMPARISON 
WITH  ADDRESS  ON  THE  POISON  PACKAGE  AND  THE 
BARNET  AND  CORNISH  WRITING. 


IDENTITY  OF  THE  CASES  OF  BARNET  AND  CORNISH.  225 


Barnet’s  death  were  recalled  as  being  suspiciously  akin  to 
the  attempt  upon  the  life  of  Cornish.  Barnet’s  illness  was 
preceded  by  the  taking  of  Kutnow  powder,  a  portion  of 
which  still  remained.  This  powder  was  subjected  to 


MOLINEUX’S  NATURAL  HANDWRITING,  ON  HIS  THREE-CRESCENT  EGG-SHELL 
BLUE  PAPER,  LIKE  THAT  ON  WHICH  THE  CORNISH  WRITINGS 
NOS.  5  AND  8  ARE  WRITTEN. 

This  letter  was  used  at  the  trial  as  a  standard  for  comparison  with  address 
on  poison  wrapper  and  the  Barnet  and  Cornish  writing. 


226 


SO-CALLED  BARNET  LETTER. 


a  chemical  analysis,  and  it  was  found  to  contain  cyanide  of 
mercury,  the  same  deadly  poison  that  was  found  mixed  with 
the  bromo-seltzer  sent  to  Cornish.  The  package  contain¬ 
ing  the  powder  was  also  received  by  Barnet  through  the 


No.  5. 

A  SO-CALLED  BARNET  LETTER. 

Compare  with  Molineux,  Nos.  3  and  4. 

(Address  given  was  a  private  letter-box  rented  by  Molineux.) 


BARNET  POISONED. 


22  7 


mail.  A  post-mortem  examination  and  chemical  analysis 
revealed  the  presence  of  the  poison  in  the  body  of  Barnet. 

Barnet  was  a  dangerous  rival  in  love,  Cornish  was  a 
hated  enemy  in  the  club,  and  Harpster  was  Cornish’s 
friend.  Here  was  at  once  shown  the  motive  on  the  part  of 


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$  3C  . 

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No.  6. 

ALLEGED  TO  HAVE  BEEN  WRITTEN  BY  MOLINEUX. 
Compare  with  Molineux,  Nos.  3  and. 4. 
(Address  given,  his  own  private  letter-box.) 


228 


MOTIVE  SHOWN. 


Molineux  for  striking  all  three.  The  correspondence  car¬ 
ried  on  in  the  names  of  Barnet  and  Cornish  through  the 
secrecy  of  private  letter-boxes  was  of  such  a  nature  that 
the  writer  would  naturally  wish  to  be  unknown.  The  tracing 
of  this  correspondence  to  the  private  letter-boxes  and  the 
identity  of  Molineux  as  the  party  who  rented  them  and 
received  the  mail  addressed  thereto,  not  only  of  themselves 
were  strong  links  in  the  testimony,  but  the  disguised  writing 
of  Molineux  upon  the  so-called  Barnet  and  Cornish  letters 


EXPERTS  EMPLOYED  BY  PROSECUTION. 


229 


was  a  powerful  aid  in  fastening  upon  Molineux  the  author¬ 
ship  of  the  writing  on  the  wrapper  of  the  poison  package. 

Eleven  of  the  best-known  handwriting  experts  of  the 
country, — William  J.  Kinsley  and  B.  F.  Kelley,  of  New 
York;  Henry  L.  Tollman,  of  Chicago;  John  F.  Tyrrell,  of 
Milwaukee,  Wis.  ;  A.  S.  Osborn,  of  Rochester,  N.  Y. ;  T. 
W.  Cantwell,  of  Albany,  N.  Y.  ;  Dr.  Persifer  Frazer,  of 
Philadelphia;  Col.  Edwin  B.  Hay,  of  Washington,  D.  C. ; 
W.  E.  Hagan,  of  Troy,  N.  Y.  ;  and  the  writer,— a  large 
number  of  bank  cashiers,  and  several  persons  (including  the 
secretary  of  the  athletic  club)  who  were  familiar  with 
Molineux’s  writing,  testified  most  positively  that  he  wrote, 
in  a  disguised  hand,  the  address  upon  the  wrapper, 
and  also  the  Barnet  and  Cornish  letters.  Against  this 
overwhelming  testimony,  there  was  employed  on  behalf 
of  the  defense  before  the  Grand  Jury,  and  in  court  during 
the  trial,  an  alleged  expert,  who  first  gained  notoriety  by 
falsely  announcing  himself  as  the  “  official  expert  of  New 
York,”  when  no  such  office  ever  existed,  and  who  was 
utterly  without  previous  special  experience  in  the  art  or 
science  of  writing  or  other  calling  that  tends  to  confer 
expert  skill  respecting  handwriting.  As  a  curious  coinci¬ 
dence,  he  was  employed  on  the  defense  of  Whittaker,  the 
West  Point  cadet,  before  the  United  States  court-martial 
which  rendered  a  unanimous  verdict  of  guilty.  He  was  also 
employed  by  the  newspaper  Truth  to  prove  the  genuineness 
of  the  notorious  Morey-Garfield  forged  letter,  and  testified 
to  its  genuineness  before  the  court  of  inquiry.  He  was 
engaged  on  the  side  of  the  defense  in  the  Collum-Blaisdell 
case  (illustrated  on  page  192).  Before  the  Surrogate 
of  New  York  he  testified  that  two  wills  —  those  of 
Mrs.  Callahan  and  Cundigundie  Backer  —  were  forgeries, 
both  of  which  were  afterwards  proved  genuine  and  admitted 
to  probate.  Recently,  in  the  United  States  District  Court, 
in  New  York,  he  testified  that  certain  pension  papers, 
alleged  to  have  been  forged  by  one  Coon,  were  not  written 


The  above  is  a  facsimile  of  the  so-called  “  Harpster  Letter,  ”  alleged  to  have  been  written  by  Molineux  for  the  purpose  of 
procuring  information  to  use  against  Harpster  with  his  employers,  in  order  to  oust  him  from  his  responsible  situation  as  collector. 
It  will  be° observed  that  the  letter  is  written  on  the  three-crescent  paper,  like  Molineux’s  (No.  3),  and  the  address  given  is  a  private 
letter-box  rented  by  Molineux. 


'V  'V 


When  requested  to  write  it  in  an  upright  hand  he  declined,  saying  he  never  wrote 
that  way,  and  could  not. 


A  0  0  R  ESS. 


MOLIN  E  UX  . 


BARNET  t  CO  R  N  ISH. 


O'  ^  y 


No.  10. 


In  this  and  the  following  cut  are  placed  in  convenient  contrast  words  from  the  admitted  writ- 
ino-  of  Molineux,  from  the  address,  and  from  the  Cornish  and  Barnet  writings.  To  the  word 
“oblige”  particular  attention  is  called— its  two  and  coincident  methods  of  making  the  ge,  the 
coincident  form  and  use  of  the  character  &,  and  also  to  the  break  between  the  i  and  g  in  al  cases 
except  in  the  second  word  in  the  Molineux  column,  which  is  from  the  dictated  writing  of  Moli- 
neux  after  attention  had  been  called  to  this  peculiarity  in  his  writing. 


M  0  L  (  (M  E  U  X  . 


BARNET.  CORNISH, 


MOLINE  UX. 


BARNET. 


CORNISH. 


ADDRESS. 


BflRNfT.  CORNISH. 


4s. - 


No.  11. 

Compare  especially  in  the  above  cut  the  fourjy’s  taken  from  the  address  and  those  from  Mol f 
mTds  wViting;  also  the  $  sign,  which  is  highly  personal,  in  that  it  is  made  in  each  instance  with 
i  S  on  a  very  long  single  line,  high  above  the  base-line. 


234 


A  QUESTIONABLE  EXPERT. 


by  him  ;  and  the  jury  disagreed,  standing  eleven  to  one 
for  conviction.  When  arraigned  shortly  after  for  a  second 
trial,  Coon  conlessed  to  having  written  the  papers  and 
pleaded  guilty.  The  circumstances  of  each  of  these  cases 
were  such  as  to  indicate  that  the  alleged  expert  was  grossly 
incompetent  or  dishonest.  In  the  famous  Hoffman-Figel 
murder  case  in  San  Francisco  this  same  witness  made  an 
affidavit  to  the  genuineness  of  Hoffman’s  alleged  signature 
to  a  receipt  for  $9,500;  and  when  the  affidavit  was  offered 
next  morning  in  court  it  was  learned  that  the  affiant  was  on 
his  way  to  New  York,  having  left  immediately  after  signing 
the  affidavit.  The  circumstances  were  such  that  the  pre¬ 
siding  judge  (Campbell)  refused  its  admission,  under  the 
most  disparaging  criticism  of  its  maker.  The  amount  for 
which  the  receipt  was  alleged  to  have  been  given  was  sub¬ 
sequently  refunded,  as  a  part  of  a  proved  defalcation. 

It  has  been  from  the  appearance  of  such  witnesses  in 
courts  that  expert  testimony  has  been  unduly  disparaged 
by  the  bench,  the  bar,  and  the  press.  It  may  be  asked  why 
such  persons  can  remain  in  the  field  as  experts.  It  must  be 
remembered  that  every  case  must  have  two  sides ;  and  the 
more  false  and  desperate  is  the  one  side,  the  more  earnest 
is  the  seeking  for  witnesses  that  will  serve  it,  and  corre¬ 
spondingly  liberal  is  the  fee  that  may  be  commanded.  Of 
course,  the  truthful  side  of  a  case  is  preferred,  and  most 
frequently  furnishes  employment;  but  when  not  called  on 
that  side,  the  adverse  side  presents  a  golden  opportunity. 

We  quote  the  following  from  District  Attorney  Osborne’s 
closing  address  to  the  jury:  “  Remember  this, —  and  don’t 
forget  it, —  that  the  great  Machiavelli  of  handwriting  experts 
in  America  [Carvalho]  was  engaged  by  the  defendant.” 

The  Molineux  trial  continued  three  months  lacking  three 
days,  at  an  estimated  cost  of  $200,000,  the  longest  and 
most  expensive  criminal  trial  on  record  in  this  country.  A 
large  factor  of  this  extraordinary  time  and  expense  was  due 
to  the  antagonizing  effect  of  this  adverse  alleged  expert,  to 


PROMINENT  CHARACTERISTICS  IN  JUXTAPOSITION.  235 

overcome  which  the  District-Attorney  felt  impelled  to  call 
experts  and  other  witnesses  as  to  handwriting  to  an  unpre¬ 
cedented  number  and  from  long  distances. 

That  our  readers  may  have  the  opportunity  of  judging 
of  the  handwriting  in  the  case,  we  present  a  few  out  of 
over  fifty  exhibits,  including  the  address  upon  the  wrapper 
of  the  poison  package,  specimens  of  the  so-called  Barnet 
and  Cornish  writing,  together  with  the  habitual  writing  of 
Molineux  and  that  which  he  wrote  from  dictation.  In  mak¬ 
ing  the  comparison,  it  will  be  observed  that  the  writing 
from  dictation  differs  about  as  widely  from  Molineux’s 
natural  hand,  as  presented  in  cuts  Nos.  3  and  4,  as  does 
that  of  the  address.  Why  was  this  so,  if  he  was  innocent 
of  the  alleged  charge  of  having  written  the  address  upon 
the  poison  package  and  the  Barnet  and  Cornish  letters  ? 

To  many  of  the  coincident  characteristics  of  the  dis¬ 
puted  and  admitted  writing  we  have  called  attention  in 
connection  with  the  cuts.  To  any  one  accustomed  to 
observe  handwriting  it  will  be  apparent  that  the  address 
upon  the  package  and  the  Barnet  and  Cornish  writing  are 
in  a  disguised  hand,  and  that,  in  the  main,  the  same  dis¬ 
guise  is  employed  in  each — viz :  a  coarse  pen,  held  over  to 
the  side,  and  the  words  written  in  an  upright  position. 
Indeed,  the  change  of  slant  and  a  few  of  the  types  of  let¬ 
ters  are  chiefly  the  disguise. 

Upon  the  wrapper  the  types  of  the  capital  letters  are  too 
absurd  to  be  a  part  of  any  habitual  writing,  and  in  that 
respect  are  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  more  orderly  and 
well-formed  small  letters ;  while  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
address  the  writer  seems  to  have  lapsed  into  nearly  his 
natural  hand,  except  as  to  slope  and  greater  formality  of 
the  writing. 

In  cuts  Nos.  1  and  2  we  have  placed  in  juxtaposition 
the  written  address  upon  the  poison  package  and  Moli¬ 
neux’s  copy  of  it  written  from  dictation.  Attention  is 
called  to  the  coincident  tendency  of  the  words  to  change  as 


WORDS  FOR  COMPARISON. 


236 

to  their  base-line,  the  words  and  lines  rising  from  left  to  right, 
and  the  uniformity  of  the  crosses  of  the  t ’s,  except  in  the 
word  “athletic,”  where  the  two  t ’s  are  crossed  by  one 
sweep  of  the  pen.  A  parallel  of  this  is  in  cut  No.  3,  in  the 
,  words  “  interest  ”  and  “  return,”  while  other  crosses  are 
short.  Further  comparison  we  leave  to  the  reader. 

Cut  No.  5  should  be  compared  with  No.  4,  as  much  of 
their  composition  is  coincident.  Special  attention  is  called 
to  the  words  “find,”  “enclosed”  (which  in  each  instance 
begins  with  a  mammoth  e  —  see,  also,  “evidently,”  cut  No. 
3,  line  1),  the  dollar-mark,  “which,”  “send,”  “oblige,”  and 
“truly.”  The  word  “  Gentlemen  ”  in  cut  No.  5  should  be 
compared  with  same  word  in  cut  No.  9.  Note  the  three  long 
es  and  the  diminishing  m  and  n.  Cuts  Nos.  8  and  9  should 
be  compared  with  each  other.  One  of  the  peculiar  habits 
of  Molineux’s  writing  was  to  make  an  initial  i  very  high, 
beginning  abruptly  at  the  top.  Examples  are  in  cut  No.  3, 
lines  14,  20,  and  22.  Compare  with  same  in  cut  No.  6, 
line  5  ;  cut  No.  8,  line  7  ;  cut  No.  9,  line  5. 

In  cuts  Nos.  10  and  11  we  have  grouped  several  of  the 
more  prominent  features  of  the  writing  in  the  case,  for 
the  greater  convenience  of  comparison  and  the  presen¬ 
tation  of  several  peculiarities  not  present  in  the  limited 
number  of  the  exhibits  it  was  deemed  practical  to  here 
present,  out  of  some  fifty  or  more  used  by  the  experts  in  the 
case. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 


REPORT  OF  THE  WRITER  ON  THE  CELEBRATED  DREYFUS  CASE, 

PARIS,  FRANCE. 

Few  cases,  if  any,  that  have  involved  the  genuineness  of 
handwriting,  have  elicited  wider  attention  and  a  greater 
interest  than  the  great  French  trial  for  treason,  popularly 
known  as  the  Captain  Dreyfus  case. 

“  At  the  time  of  the  arrest  and  trial  of  Dreyfus  it  was  given  out  that 
the  incriminating  evidence  had  come  from  the  waste  -  basket  of  the 
German  Embassy,  and  had  been  secured  by  one  of  the  secret  military 
agents  of  the  Government.  This  individual,  who  was  disguised  as  a 
rag-picker,  made  a  practice  of  buying  and  carefully  going  over  all  the 
refuse  paper  that  came  from  the  office  of  the  German  Embassy,  in  an 
effort  to  find  some  clew  to  the  source  of  leakage  of  important  military 
secrets  which  were  known  to  be  in  the  possession  of  the  German  Min¬ 
istry  of  War.  One  day,  according  to  the  story  given  out  by  the 
officers  of  the  French  Government,  this  detective  rag-picker  secured, 
among  the  papers  that  had  been  thrown  out,  the  ‘bordereau,’  or  ‘list 
of  documents.’  This  was  a  single  sheet  of  buff-colored  note-paper  of 
ordinary  size,  and  from  its  contents  seemed  to  be  a  memorandum 
of  certain  documents  which  had  presumably  been  conveyed  to  the 
Germans. 

“  It  was  written  in  French,  and  ran  as  follows  :  — 

Although  I  have  had  no  news  from  you  to  the  effect 
that  you  wish  to  see  me,  I  nevertheless  send  you,  sir, 
some  information  of  interest. 

1.  A  note  on  the  hydraulic  brake,  120;  how  it 
worked  when  experiments  were  made. 

2.  A  note  concerning  the  covering  forces.  Several 
modifications  will  be  made  by  the  new  plan. 

3.  A  note  relative  to  alterations  in  the  formations  of 
artillery  corps. 


238 


“the  bordereau.” 


4.  A  note  relating  to  Madagascar. 

5.  The  draft  of  a  manual  of  artillery  field-practice, 
March  14,  1894. 

This  last  document  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  procure, 
and  I  can  have  it  at  my  disposal  only  for  a  very  few  days. 

The  Minister  has  sent  a  certain  number  of  copies  to  the 
different  regiments,  and  the  regiments  are  responsible  for 
them.  Every  officer  who  has  a  copy  has  to  return  it 
after  the  maneuvers.  So,  if  you  wish  to  make  such 
extracts  from  it  as  may  interest  you,  I  will  procure  a 
copy,  subject  to  your  promising  to  return  it  to  me  as  soon 
as  you  have  done  with  it.  Perhaps,  however,  you  would 
prefer  that  I  should  copy  it  out  word  for  word  and  send 
you  the  copy. 

I  am  just  going  to  the  maneuver. 


SO*/  7rru^<f*> 

l*x, 

Jl  5 


rh<*s£-  ~  V  ^  a.v  Asx***  # 


FACSIMILE  OF  A  PORTION  OF  THE  BORDEREAU  WHICH  DREYFUS  DENIES  WRITING. 


dreyfus’s  genuine  writing. 


239 


“  That  was  all.  There  was  no  address,  no  date,  no  signature.  The 
documents  referred  to  in  the  memorandum  were  scarcely  of  vital  impor¬ 
tance  ;  but,  naturally,  the  French  Government  was  interested  to  find 
out  whether  its  secret  orders  were  being  systematically  conveyed  to  the 
Germans. 

‘  ‘  Armed  with  the  clew  provided  by  the  ‘  bordereau,  ’  the  secret 
agents  of  the  Ministry  set  about  the  task  of  finding  its  author.  The 
writing  of  all  the  persons  from  whom  it  could  possibly  have  emanated 
was  examined  and  compared  with  it.  It  was  finally  announced  by 
Major  Du  Paty  de  Clam  that  the  writing  in  the  ‘  bordereau  ’  coincided 
with  that  of  Captain  Alfred  Dreyfus,  stagiary  in  the  second  bureau  at 
the  general  staff  corps. 

“  Though  Dreyfus  was  under  surveillance  from  this  time,  he  was  not 
at  once  placed  under  formal  arrest.  The  ‘bordereau,’  together  with 
authenticated  specimens  of  the  handwriting  of  the  accused  man,  was 
first  submitted  to  two  French  handwriting  experts  for  their  opinion. 


FACSIMILE  OF  A  PORTION  OF  A  GENUINE  LETTER  OF  DREYFUS. 


240 


THE  EXPERTS. 


“  These  authorities  —  M.  Gobert  and  M.  Bertillon  —  after  a  thorough 
examination  of  the  papers  submitted  to  them,  delivered  opinions 
exactly  opposite.  Gobert  decided  that  the  two  could  not  have  been 
written  by  the  one  man,  while  Bertillon  announced  himself  convinced 
that  both  were  the  work  of  the  same  hand  ;  and  later,  three  other 
graphologists  were  consulted,  two  of  whom  agreed  with  Bertillon, 
while  the  other  sided  with  M.  Gobert.  The  preponderance  of  opinion 
was  against  the  prisoner.  In  spite  of  his  protestations  of  innocence, 
the  authorship  of  the  ‘bordereau’  was  fastened  upon  him,  and  he  was 
sentenced  to  perpetual  exile,  and  the  infamy  of  being  degraded  as  a 
traitor. 

“  In  order  to  arrive  at  some  estimate  of  the  value  of  these  different 
opinions,  it  may  be  well  to  consider  for  a  moment  the  men  who  uttered 
them.  M.  Gobert  is  the  expert  examiner  of  the  Bank  of  France,  and 
the  most  distinguished  private  graphologist  in  France,  a  man  with 
presumably  no  prejudice  in  favor  of  either  party  in  the  case.  M.  Ber¬ 
tillon  is  widely  known  as  a  commissary  of  police  and  Chef  de  la  Service 
de  l’ldentite  Judiciare- — an  official  of  the  French  Government,  and 
probably  acquainted  with  its  overwhelming  desire  to  fasten  the  crime 
upon  the  accused  man.  The  other  experts  were  men  of  less  note, 
and  may  have  been  influenced  by  the  earlier  decisions. 

“After  the  conviction  and  transportation  of  Dreyfus,  his  family 
and  friends  began  an  active  campaign  to  prove  his  innocence. 

“  As  one  step  in  this  they  prepared  exact  reproductions  of  the  ‘  bor¬ 
dereau,’  and  of  two  authentic  specimens  of  the  condemned  man’s 
handwriting,  one  written  before  and  one  after  the  discovery  of  that  docu¬ 
ment.  These  were  submitted  to  the  most  famous  graphologists  of  the 
world,  eleven  in  number.  Mr.  Ames  was  among  those  whose  opinions 
were  solicited,  and  thus  was  brought  officially  into  the  case.  It  is  an 
interesting  and  significant  fact  that  these  eleven  experts,  in  half  a  dozen 
different  countries,  working  independently  of  each  other,  and  along 
original  lines,  were  unanimously  of  the  opinion  that  the  two  papers  were 
not  and  could  not  have  been  written  by  the  same  man.  Thus  the  con¬ 
gress  of  experts  stood  three  for  and  thirteen  against  the  decision  of  the 
court-martial,  while  the  civilized  world,  outside  of  France,  united  in 
favor  of  Dreyfus.” 

The  following  is  a  copy  of  the  writer’s  report,  submitted 
in  April,  1897,  and  which  was  remarkably  verified  at  the  sub¬ 
sequent  trial  of  Captain  Dreyfus  : — 


OFFICE  OF  DANIEL  T.  AMES. 

Hand-writing  Expert 

NEW  YORK  CITY 

(now  24  POST  ST.,  san  francisco,  California)  NEW  YORK  ClTY, 

“ In  re  Dreyfus.  September  26,  1898. 

“This  is  to  certify  that  I  have  examined  two  photo - 
lithographed  copies  of  letters  selected  as  standard  writing 
of  Captain  Dreyfus;  one  dated  1895,  and  the  other  1890. 
That  of  1895  with  a  stub  pen  of  medium  fineness  and 
near  to  the  standard  slant  of  fifty-two  degrees ;  while  that 
of  1890  is  of  a  more  upright  slant  and  with  a  stub  pen. 
Both  letters  are  in  a  smooth,  flowing  style. 

“  I  have  also  made  a  careful  examination  and  comparison 
of  these  letters  with  another  writing  without  date  or  signa¬ 
ture,  alleged  to  have  been  written  by  Captain  Dreyfus. 
The  latter  is  so  imperfect  in  its  reproduction  as  to  em¬ 
barrass  the  comparison,  and  render  the  conclusion  less 
reliable  than  it  otherwise  would  be ;  but  from  such  com¬ 
parison  as  I  have  been  enabled  to  make,  I  am  of  the 
opinion  that  the  said  unknown  writing  is  the  result  of  an 
effort  to  imitate  or  counterfeit  the  writing  of  Dreyfus 
rather  than  the  endeavor  of  the  author  of  the  standard 
writing  to  disguise  his  hand.  It  is  my  opinion  that  the 
anonymous  writing,  or  so-called  ‘bordereau,’  was  not  written 
by  Captain  Dreyfus. 

“  I  am  lead  to  this  conclusion  from  the  apparently  lower 
order  of  artistic  skill  manifest  in  the  anonymous  writing.  It 
differs  in  its  angularity,  in  the  shorter  extensions  of  the 
loops  and  other  extended  letters,  and  it  also  differs  in  the 
form  and  relationship  of  the  letters,  in  the  transposed  pen- 
pressure,  in  the  alignment  and  slope  of  the  writing,  and  in 
the  different  manner  of  crossing  the  t' s.  These  are  the 
differences  which  would  designate  imitated  rather  than 
disguised  writing.  It  must  be  understood  that  this  conclu¬ 
sion  is  reached  from  the  comparison  of  reproduced  writing, 
which  must  of  necessity  be  more  or  less  imperfect,  and  this 
opinion  might  be  more  or  less  modified  according  to  the 
correspondence  of  the  lithographic  copies  with  the  originals. 

“  Respectfully  submitted,  Daniel  T.  Ames.” 


CHAPTER  XIX. 


THE  JUNIUS  LETTERS  —  ABSTRACT  FROM  THE  CELEBRATED  WORK 
OF  SIR  EDWARD  TWISLETON,  EMBODYING  THE  REPORT  OF  THE 
FAMOUS  ENGLISH  EXPERT,  CHABOT,  ON  THE  AUTHORSHIP  OF 
THE  JUNIUS  LETTERS. 

Beyond  doubt  the  handwriting  in  the  Junius  Letters  has 
been  the  subject  of  a  more  prolonged  and  persistent  inquiry 
than  has  been  accorded  any  other  matter  wherein  the  ques¬ 
tion  of  handwriting  has  been  involved.  For  more  than  a 
century  “  Who  wrote  the  Junius  Letters  ?”  was  a  question 
of  constant  and  earnest-  repetition  throughout  the  United 
Kingdom.  The  famous  letters  were  in  a  disguised  hand- 
writing,  and  made  their  first  appearance  in  January,  1769. 
They  were  political  in  their  character,  and  laid  bare  to  the 
bone  the  inner  workings  of  British  politics  and  the  corrup¬ 
tion  of  the  British  court  of  that  period.  Scarcely  a  man  in 
public  life  escaped  the  lash  and  biting  sarcasm  of  these 
powerful  missives,  which  betrayed  a  most  intimate  knowl¬ 
edge  of  all  that  was  going  on  in  the  most  guarded  political 
and  social  circles,  as  well  as  the-  private  lives  of  the  minis¬ 
ters  and  political  leaders.  Their  author  therefore  had  the 
strongest  incentive  to  conceal  his  identity  at  any  cost.  Dis¬ 
covery  and  exposure  would  mean  nothing  less  than  ruin, 
perhaps  an  ignominious  death.  This  was  a  quite  sufficient 
reason  for  his  taking  the  secret  with  him  to  the  grave. 

Hardly  an  eminent  Englishman  of  that  period  escaped 
the  suspicion  of  having  written  the  letters.  But  when  the 
evidence  was  gathered  and  sifted,  only  the  sieve  remained. 
Burke,  Wilkes,  Horne  Tooke,  Lord  Lyttleton,  Lord  George 


CHABOT  S  REPORT  ON  THE  JUNIUS  LETTERS. 


243 


Sackville,  Lord  Shelburn,  Colonel  Barre,  Sir  Philip  Francis, 
and  Lady  Temple,  were  among  the  many  to  whom  the 
authorship  has  been  attributed. 

We  have  before  us  a  large  quarto  work,  by  the  Murrays 
of  London,  consisting  of  six  hundred  and  sixty-five  pages, 
which  is  described  on  the  title  page  as  “  The  Handwriting 
of  Junius  as  Professionally  Investigated  by  Mr.  Charles 
Chabot,  Expert :  With  Preface  and  Collateral  Evidence  by 
the  Hon.  Edward  Twisleton.”  The  result  of  this  investi¬ 
gation  is  that  the  Junius  Letters  are  attributed  to  Sir 
Philip  Francis  with  a  degree  of  positiveness  that  would 
warrant  a  jury’s  verdict  in  an  ordinary  case,  and  the 
mystery  of  a  century  is  cleared  away.  Probably  there  is 
not  recorded  a  greater  triumph  for  expert  testimony  with 
respect  of  evidence  from  handwriting. 

The  work  of  Messrs.  Chabot  and  Twisleton,  says  the 
editor  of  the  Quarterly  Review ,  possesses  a  value  quite 
independent  of  the  immediate  question  which  it  discusses. 
Its  direct  object  is  to  prove  by  a  minute  and  exhaustive 
examination  of  the  Junian  manuscripts  and  of  the  letters 
of  Sir  Philip  Francis  that  both  of  them  were  written  by 
the  same  person;  but  indirectly  it  supplies  most  valuable 
information  and  rules  for  guidance  to  those  engaged  in  the 
investigation  of  subjects  in  which  a  comparison  of  hand¬ 
writing  is  more  or  less  involved. 

In  the  book  are  presented  eighty-five  lithographed  plates 
of  the  writing  of  Sir  Philip  Francis  and  eighty-three  plates 
of  the  junian  writing.  It  is  by  far  the  most  voluminous 
and  most  profusely  illustrated  work  yet  published  upon 
expert  comparison  of  handwriting. 

In  seeking  to  prove  that  two  different  handwritings  have 
been  made  use  of  by  the  same  person,  it  is  important  to 
observe  the  method  pursued  in  the  investigation.  Most 
persons  are  content  with  a  general  comparison,  without 
endeavoring  to  ascertain  the  principles  which  govern  the 
handwriting,  or  the  characteristic  habits  in  the  two  hand- 


244 


UNDERLYING  PRINCIPLES. 


writings  under  discussion.  They  thus  form  their  judgment 
by  the  impression  left  upon  their  minds  by  general  simi¬ 
larity,  without  that  careful  examination  of  the  peculiar  and 
distinctive  formations  of  individual  letters  which  character¬ 
ize  the  writing.  “  The  principles  which  underlie  all  proof 
by  comparison  of  handwritings  are  very  simple,  and  when 
distinctly  enunciated,  appear  to  be  self-evident.  To  prove 
that  two  documents  were  written  by  the  same  hand,  coinci¬ 
dences  must  be  shown  to  exist  in  them  which  cannot  be 
accidental.  To  prove  that  two  documents  were  written  by 
different  hands,  discrepancies  must  be  pointed  out  in  them 
which  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  accident  or  by  disguise. 
These  principles  are  easy  to  understand,  but  to  exemplify 
them  in  observations  is  by  no  means  always  easy.”  It  is 
the  merit  of  these  reports  that  they  give  a  minute  analysis 
of  the  handwriting  by  examining  separately  the  elements 
or  letters  of  which  it  is  composed.  From  a  great  mass  of 
matter  presented  we  select  a  few  illustrations  for  compari¬ 
son,  which  appear  in  the  following  pages.  In  approaching 
this  branch  of  the  subject,  Mr.  Chabot  says:— 

“  I  find  generally  in  the  writing  of  the  letters  of  Sir  Philip  Francis 
so  much  variety  in  the  formation  of  all  letters  which  admit  of  variety 
as  to  render  his  handwriting  difficult  to  disguise  in  any  ordinary  man¬ 
ner,  and  consequently  easy  to  identify.  I  discovefalso  in  the  writing 
of  the  letters  and  manuscripts  of  Junius  variations  in  the  formation  of 
certain  letters,  in  some  cases  very  multifarious,  and  of  frequent  occur¬ 
rence,  and  that  these  variations  closely  correspond  with  those  observed 
in  the  writing  of  Sir  Philip  Francis.  They  are,  however,  chiefly  con¬ 
fined  to  the  small  letters  in  both  handwritings;  the  habitual  formation 
of  capital  letters  being  seldom  departed  from  in  any  essential  particular 
in  either.  I  find  also,  in  some  instances,  wherein  J  unius  makes  exag¬ 
gerated  formations  of  certain  letters,  exact  counterparts  of  them  are  to 
be  found  in  the  writing  of  Sir  Philip  Francis,  and  in  some  cases  as 
nearly  as  possible  with  the  same  frequency.  I  further  find  in  the  hand¬ 
writing  of  Sir  Philip  Francis  a  repetition  of  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  lead¬ 
ing  features  and  peculiar  habits  of  writing,  independent  of  the  formations 
of  letters,  which  so  distinguish  the  Junian  writing.  These  are  so 
numerous,  so  varied,  and  in  some  cases  so  distinctive,  that,  when  taken 


TWO  CLASSES  OF  EVIDENCE. 


245 


collectively,  it  is  scarcely  within  the  limits  of  possibility  that  they  can 
be  found  in  the  handwriting  of  any  two  persons.  I  am,  therefore,  irre¬ 
sistibly  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  thejunian  manuscripts  and  the 
forty-four  letters  of  Francis  have  all  been  written  by  one  and  the  same 
hand.” 

Mr.  Chabot  brings  forward  two  distinct  classes  of  evi¬ 
dence  to  identify  the  handwriting  of  Sir  Philip  Francis 
with  that  of  Junius,  one  relating  to  the  formation  of  letters 
and  to  peculiarities  connected  therewith,  and  the  other  to 
habits  of  writing  which  do  not  necessarily  depend  on  such 
formations  and  peculiarities. 

First  as  to  the  general  construction  of  the  Junian  hand¬ 
writing  :  — 

“  Upon  an  attentive  examination  it  will  be  found  that  the  slope  of  the 
Junian  writing  differs  from  that  of  Francis’s  principally  in  the  down- 
strokes  of  the  letters,  and  that  the  slope  of  the  up-strokes,  which  is 
very  horizontally  inclined,  is,  as  nearly  as  may  be,  the  same  in  both. 
This  will  become  clearly  apparent  upon  an  examination  and  comparison 
of  the  following  facsimiles: — 

FRANCIS. 

0vCCL_2 


JUNIUS. 


“  Some  writers  make  both  the  upper  and  lower  turns  ol  their  letters 
angular;  others  give  them  considerable  roundness;  the  results  are  two 
opposite  styles  of  writing.  When  Francis  wrote  rapidly,  his  writing 
partook  of  both  characteristics  in  an  eminent  degree.  If  he  altered  the 
down-strokes  —  by  making  them  more  upright,  without  making  any 
corresponding  alteration  in  the  up-strokes  of  his  writing,  those  three 
qualifications  would  necessarily  be  augmented  and  become  more  dis¬ 
tinctly  apparent.  Be  that  as  it  may,  they  are  the  principles  upon  which 
the  Junian  hand  is  constructed. 

‘‘When  Junius  altered  the  natural  tendency  of  his  hand,  which  he 
sometimes  attempted  for  the  purpose  of  disguising  it,  by  making  the 
lower  as  well  as  the  upper  turns  of  his  letters  angular,  the  two  leading 


246  WRITING  OF  FRANCIS  AND  JUNIUS  CONTRASTED. 


characteristics  of  extreme  breadth  to  the  former  and  narrowness  to  the 


latter  still  remain.  It  is  not  only  the  fineness  and  smallness  of  the  writ¬ 


ing,  but  also  the  angularity  of  so  many  of  the  lower  turns  of  the  writing 
of  that  letter,  that  occasion  the  strong  contrast  of  its  general  character 
to  that  of  the  letters  to  Woodfall,  Nos.  7,  9,  12,  and  22,  and  others  of 
the  Junian  writing. 

“Although  many  of  the  letters  of  Junius  contrast  with  each  other 
in  their  general  appearance,  the  construction  of  the  writing  of  all  is 
based  upon  these  principles:  In  all,  the  upper  turns  of  the  letters  are 
angular  and  cramped,  and  the  lower  turns  wide  and  free;  and  the  latter 
are  habitually,  though  not  always,  well  rounded,  agreeably  with  the 
natural  tendency  of  Francis’s  writing,  particularly  when  he  wrote  rap¬ 
idly.  The  extreme  width  of  the  lower  turns  of  the  letters  frequently 
occasioned  in  the  Junian  hand  as  much  space  between  the  letters  as 
between  words,  as  shown  in  the  subjoined  facsimiles: — 


FRANCIS. 


“The  following  words,  taken  from  Junius’s  first  letter  to  Mr.  Gren¬ 
ville,  forcibly  illustrates  these  three  peculiarities: — 

JUNIUS. 


“  In  that  facsimile  the  upper  turns  of  the  letters  h  and  m  are  angular 
in  the  extreme,  and  the  lower  turn  of  the  letter  h  is  so  round  and  wide 
that  it  occasions  almost  as  much  space  between  the  two  letters  as  is 
afforded  between  the  word  and  the  word  following  it.’’ 

The  following  may  be  mentioned  as  some  of  the  spe¬ 
cialties  in  the  handwritings  of  Junius  and  Francis:  — 

I.  Sir  Philip  Francis  was  apt  to  write  the  letter  i  in  the  word 
‘time’  upside  down,  as  in  the  following  facsimiles: — 


FRANCIS. 


JUNIUS. 


HABITS  REPEATED  IN  A  FEIGNED  HAND. 


247 


“He  has  done  so  in  eight  of  the  twenty-one  instances  wherein  that 
word  occurs  in  his  letters.  He  would,  therefore,  be  liable  to  repeat 
that  habit  while  writing  in  a  feigned  hand.  Accordingly  I  find  on  the 
second  page  of  Junius’s  third  letter  to  Mr.  Grenville,  that  word  written 
in  the  same  remarkable  manner,  as  shown  on  preceding  page. 

“Moreover,  the  general  character  of  the  writing  of  that  word  cor¬ 
responds  closely  with  the  two  instances  taken  from  Francis’s  writing. 

“II.  But,  further,  Francis,  having  written  the  word  ‘time’  in 
the  middle  of  a  sentence,  in  the  peculiar  manner  shown,  had  the  habit 
of  occasionally  making  an  addition  to  the  small  letter  t,  which  had  the 
effect  of  converting  it  (improperly)  into  a  capital  letter,  thus; — 


FRANCIS. 


“Both  of  these  peculiarities  occur' in  the  word  ‘time,’  written  on 
the  first  page  of  Junius’s  first  letter  to  Mr.  Grenville,  thus: — 


JUNIUS. 


“The  letter  from  which  that  word  is  taken  is  dated  only  a  month 
after  the  date  of  Francis’s  letter  from  which  the  first  of  the  two  facsim¬ 
iles  of  the  word  ‘  time  ’  is  taken,  and  it  occurs  in  the  same  phrase, 
viz:  ‘in  the  mean  time.’  The  form  of  the  addition  made  by  Junius 
does  not  exactly  correspond  with  that  by  Francis,  because  he  was  dis¬ 
guising  his  hand;  but  the  habit  or  intention  is  the  same,  notwithstand¬ 
ing  the  difference  of  form.  This  disguise,  however,  like  many  others 
adopted  by  Junius,  was  not  uniformly  maintained.  There  is  another 
instance  in  which  no  difference  of  form  appears.  Francis  occasionally 
made  this  addition  to  the  small  letter  t  when  he  wrote  the  word 
‘thing’  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence  where  no  capital  letter  was  needed, 
as  in  the  following  facsimile: — 


248 


COMPARISON  OF  HABITS,  CONTINUED. 


FRANCIS. 


“Junius  has  made  a  similar  addition,  and  in  like  form  to  the  letter  t, 
in  the  same  word,  also  written  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence,  as  here 
shown : — 

JUNIUS. 


“It  will  be  observed  in  each  case  that  if  the  addition  be  removed 
the  word  will  remain  written  with  a  small  letter  /,  commenced  with  an 
up-stroke  in  the  usual  manner,  and  that  the  entire  word  has  been  writ¬ 
ten  by  a  single  operation  of  the  pen,  sustained  on  the  paper  until  the 
word  has  been  completed. 

“These  two  peculiarities  are  by  no  means  frequent  in  the  Junian 
writings;  their  occurrence  in  Francis’s  hand  suggests  the  source  whence 
they  are  derived.  They  occur  in  other  words  in  his  writing  at  irregu¬ 
lar  intervals,  insufficient  to  be  regarded  as  habits  of  writing,  but  rather 
as  inadvertencies  to  which  he  was  liable.  Another  instance  of  an 
inverted  letter  i  occurs  in  the  word  ‘writing,’  and  ‘write,’  in  Francis’s 
letters,  thus: — 

FRANCIS. 


*1" 


“  It  also  occurs  in  similar  words  in  Junius  to  Woodfall,  thus:- 


JUNIUS. 


firyrijL , 

4 


“  In  the  same  way  that  Francis  formed  the  letter  i  similarly  to  a  let¬ 
ter  r,  so  he  formed  (and  far  more  frequently)  the  letter  r  like  a  letter 
The  writing  of  Junius  is  equally  plentiful  in  these  irregularities. 


THE  OMISSION  OF  LETTERS. 


249 


In  Junius  to  Woodfall,  the  two  letters  v  and  e  of  the 
second  syllable  of  the  word  “Cavendishes”  are  omitted. 
The  omission  is  signified  by  a  peculiar  compound  curve 
with  hooks.  This  mark  is  the  brand  of  Francis’s  hand, 
and,  corroborated  by  other  evidence,  stamps  that  letter  as 
having  emanated  from  him.  The  omission  of  the  three 
letters  u,  a,  and  r  of  the  second  syllable  of  the  word  “  Feb¬ 
ruary  ”  in  the  dating  of  that  letter,  is  signified  by  a  mark 
in  perfect  keeping  with  that  employed  by  Junius  and 
Francis,  as  in  the  following  facsimiles:  — 


JUNIUS.  FRANCIS. 


“I  do  not  remember  [Mr.  Chabot  says]  having  seen  this  mode  of 
shortening  a  word  in  any  other  handwriting.  It  may  have  been  com¬ 
mon  in  the  last  century,  but  no  instance  has  attracted  my  attention  in  a 
very  large  amount  of  different  handwritings  of  that  period  which  I  have 
examined  in  the  British  Museum.  It  occurs  once  only  in  the  Junian 
hand,  but  I  find  three  other  instances  in  the  letter-book,  on  the  backs 
of  letters  by  Francis,  besides  that  already  given,  sufficient  to  show  that 
that  mark  of  abbreviation  was  a  peculiarity  specially  belonging  to  his 
hand. 

“  The  preceding  are  instances  of  specialties  in  regard  to  forms,  in  all 
three  of  which,  in  combination,  few  if  any  other  writers  can  be  found 
to  participate  with  Junius  and  Francis.  I  find  in  their  hands  not  only 
coincidences  of  special  formation  of  letters,  but  of  special  uses  for  which 
particular  formations  only  of  certain. letters  are  employed;  and  notwith¬ 
standing  those  formations  are  of  a  common  character,  the  application 
of  them  to  particular  uses,  to  the  exclusion  of  other  common  forma¬ 
tions,  gives  them  considerable  importance.  We  may  also  notice  another 
specialty  in  the  two  handwritings  relating  to  the  letters  m  and  n. 

“  The  junction  of  two  words  had  the  effect  of  materially  altering  the 
character  of  the  formation  of  certain  letters  in  the  two  handwritings 
now  under  examination.  Both  Junius  and  Francis  frequently  formed 
the  letters  m  and  n  in  a  somewhat  distinctive  manner,  as  in  the  follow¬ 
ing  facsimiles: — 


HABIT  OF  JOINING  LETTERS. 


2  50 


JUNIUS.  FRANCIS. 

{  -l  4.  4. 


JUNIUS.  FRANCIS. 


JUNIUS. 


4 - 


“  It  will  be  observed  that  roundness  of  form  characterizes  the  upper 
turns,  commencing  the  letter  m  and  n,  in  the  above  examples.  Those 
letters  might  have  been  j’oined  to  the  words  preceding  them  and  still 
have  preserved  that  character,  and  would  do  so  in  hands  wherein  round¬ 
ness  of  form  is  habitual.  This,  however,  was  not  so  either  with  Junius 
or  with  Francis.  Moreover,  they  were  both  prone  to  join  words,  com¬ 
mencing  with  m  or  n ,  to  the  words  preceding  them. 

“Francis,  on  very  rare  occasions,  commenced  the  small  letter  m, 
when  disjoined  from  the  preceding  word,  not  only  angularly,  but  in  a 
very  distinctive  manner,  as  in  the  subjoined  examples: — 


“When  Junius  joined  either  a  letter  m  or  n  to  the  word  preceding 
it,  he  altered  the  character  of  those  letters  in  a  very  marked  manner  by 
changing  the  round  form  into  a  very  angular  one.  Francis  also  fell 
into  the  same  habit,  as  is  evinced  in  the  following  facsimiles: — 

JUNIUS. 

t^]\jl4Xsrn 

4 


HABITS  COMMON  TO  FRANCIS  AND  JUNIUS. 


25l 


FRANCIS. 


aJjL^tlaXbuir 


4. 


JUNIUS. 


'iJudAx/r 

4  + 


FRANCIS. 


“Two  instances  of  the  letter  m  thus  formed  occur  in  the  Junian 
hand,  as  in  the  words  ‘man’  and  ‘money,’  written  in  the  essay  sent 
to  Mr.  Grenville,  as  in  the  following  facsimiles: — 


FRANCIS. 


JUNIUS. 


“Thus,  three  distinct  formations  of  the  letters  at  the  beginnings 
of  words,  distinguish  alike  the  handwriting  of  both  Junius  and  Francis.’’ 

We  have  selected  the  accompanying  similarities  out  of 
many  hundreds  of  a  like  kind,  merely  as  examples  of  the 
mode  of  investigation  adopted  by  Mr.  Chabot  in  dealing  with 
the  formation  of  letters.  We  now  proceed  to  mention  some 
instances  of  habits  common  to  Junius  and  Francis,  which 
are  not  necessarily  dependent  on  their  mode  of  forming 
letters.  Mr.  Chabot  enumerates  ten  such  instances:  — 

“  i.  The  mode  of  dating  letters. 

“2.  The  placing  of  a  full-stop  after  the  salutation. 

“  3.  The  mode  of  signing  initials  between  two  dashes. 


252 


NINE  POINTS  IN  DATING  OF  LETTERS. 


“4.  Writing  in  paragraphs. 

“  5.  Separating  paragraphs  by  dashes  placed  between  them  at  their 
commencement. 

“6.  Invariable  attention  to  punctuation. 


/ 


JUNIUS. 


/ 


FRANCIS. 


—  ? 


/ 


“7.  The  enlargement  of  the  first  letters  of  words. 

“8.  The  insertion  of  omitted  letters  in  the  line  of  writing,  and  not 
above  it,  and  the  various  modes  of  correcting  miswriting. 

“9.  Mode  of  abbreviating  words,  and  abbreviating  the  same 
words. 


&Jzr. 


O 


“  10.  Misspelling  certain  specifiedTw'ordsT 


Of  these  several  points  of  agreement  in  habits  between 
the  handwriting  of  Junius  and  Francis,  the  first  is  the  most 
striking  and  deserves  special  study.  The  datings  of  the 
letters  of  Junius  are  characterized  by  the  following  nine 
points :  — 

“  1.  The  placing  the  note  of  place  and  time  at  the  top  of  the  letter, 
and  not  at  the  foot  or  close  of  it. 

“  2.  The  writing  the  whole  in  one  line  only. 

“  3.  The  writing  the  name  of  place. 

“4.  Placing  the  day  of  the  month  before  the  month,  and  not 
after  it. 

“  5.  Placing  a  stop  after  the  name  of  place. 

‘ 1  6.  Placing  a  stop  after  the  day  of  the  month. 


twisleton’s  summary  of  chabot’s  report.  253 

“  7.  Pl?cing  a  stop  after  the  name  of  the  month. 

“8.  Placing  a  stop  after  the  figures  of  the  year. 

“9.  Writing  at  full  length  such  a  month  as  ‘January,’  ‘February,’ 
or  ‘October.’ 

The  following  facsimile,  taken  from  Junius’s  third  letter 
to  Mr.  Grenville,  illustrates  the  fourth  and  ninth  points:  — 


JUNIUS. 


FRANCIS. 


Now  it  is  remarkable  that  these  nine  points,  and  par¬ 
ticularly  the  first  eight,  are  found  combined  in  most  of  the 
existing  letters  of  Francis.  Many  of  these  points,  taken 
separately,  are  of  common  concurrence  in  the  openings  of 
letters  ;  but  their  combination  is  likely  to  be  extremely  rare. 
Mr.  Chabot  says  he  has  never  seen  them  combined  except 
in  Junius  and  Francis,  and  Mr.  Twisleton,  who  has  exam¬ 
ined  more  than  three  thousand  letters  in  the  “  Grenville 
Papers,”  the  “Anson  Papers,”  and  other  documents  of  the 
same  kind,  likewise  states  that  he  has  never  seen  those 
points  united  in  any  other  writer.  Mr.  Chabot,  therefore, 
we  think,  is  justified  in  adding  that,  “upon  comparing  a 
paper  written  anonymously  with  the  known  letters  of  a 
suspected  party,  such  a  combination  in  each  document 
would  carry  suspicion  to  the  highest  point,  and,  united  to  a 
few  only  of  other  coincidences  of  equal  importance,  would, 
by  an  impartial  mind,  be  deemed  conclusive  as  to  the  reality 
of  the  suspected  fact.” 

We  have  reproduced  only  a  small  part  of  the  paralleled 
examples  between  the  Francis  and  Junian  writings  pre- 


254 


NOTE  FROM  LONDON  “QUARTERLY  REVIEW.” 


sented  by  Chabot  in  his  analysis,  but  sufficient  to  illustrate 
his  method  and  vindicate  his  conclusion  that  the  two  writ¬ 
ings  are  one. 

Mr.  Twisleton  closes  his  review  of  Chabot’s  report  with 
the  following  very  pertinent  comments:  — 

“  It  sometimes  happens  that  it  is  impossible  to  detect  the  author  of 
anonymous  letters  or  of  a  forged  signature,  except  by  a  comparison  of 
handwritings.  A  bad  and  base  man  may  successfully  have  taken  such 
precautions  that  no  human  eye  saw  his  hand  while  it  was  penning  a 
particular  document,  and  that  no  external  evidence  is  in  existence  to 
trace  that  document  into  his  possession.  In  such  a  case,  everything  in 
a  trial  may  depend  on  the  special  knowledge  which  is  brought  to  bear 
on  the  internal  evidence  of  the  document  itself  by  the  advocates,  the 
jury,  and  the  judge.  From  ignorance  of  the  subject  an  advocate 
sometimes  does  not  ask  the  proper  questions  of  an  expert  whose  evi¬ 
dence  is  favorable  to  his  cause.  From  similar  ignorance  an  advocate 
on  the  other  side  is  frequently  driven  into  the  subterfuge  of  declaiming 
against  experts,  when,  if  he  had  a  little  knowledge  of  the  subject,  he 
might  weaken  the  force  of  adverse  evidence  by  two  or  three  reasonable 
objections.  And  if  in  a  trial  either  the  judge  or  a  single  prejudiced 
juryman  held  the  opinion  that  no  certainty  could  be  arrived  at  by  com¬ 
parison  of  handwritings,  or  that  in  such  comparison  it  was  a  better  test 
to  look  to  general  character  than  to  individual  letters,  there  might  easily 
be  an  absolute  miscarriage  of  justice.  If  accused  of  writing  malicious  and 
libelous  anonymous  letters,  a  guilty  man  might  escape,  or  an  innocent  man 
might  be  condemned.  Whem  important  interests  were  at  stake  a  genuine 
will  might  be  rejected  while  one  that  was  forged  might  be  accepted.” 

Note  by  editor  of  London  Quarterly  Review :  “  The  following  observations 
of  Mr.  Twisleton  on  the  subject  of  ‘experts’  deserve  to  be  remembered  in  the 
present  investigation  :  ‘The  word  “expert”  is  often  used  very  loosely.  It  is  fre¬ 
quently  used  to  designate  lithographers,  or  gentlemen  connected  with  banks, 
who  come  forward  as  witnesses  once  or  twice  in  their  lives  to  express  their 
belief  that  a  particular  document  was  or  was  not  written  by  a  certain  individual. 
The  word  has,  then,  a  meaning  very  different  from  that  of  general  experts  in 
handwriting,  recognized  as  such  in  courts  of  justice,  like  Mr.  Chabot  and  Mr. 
Netherclift,  to  whom  cases  of  disputed  writing  are  systematically  submitted, 
from  time  to  time,  for  their  professional  opinion,  and  who  are  prepared  to  state 
detailed  reasons  for  every  such  opinion  which  they  give.  Having  taken  some 
pains  to  ascertain  this  point,  I  have  been  assured  that  during  the  last  fifty  years 
the  number  of  such  experts  in  London  has  been  very  few,  and  that  there  are 
only  two  such  experts  in  London  practice  now.  Hence,  tales  about  experts 
should  be  received  with  distrust,  unless  names  and  particulars  are  mentioned, 
so  that  it  may  be  ascertained  in  what  sense  the  word  “expert”  is  used.’  ” 


CHAPTER  XX. 


QUALIFYING  AN  EXPERT  WITNESS  —  USE  OF  PHOTOGRAPHS  AND 

BLACKBOARD. 

Preliminary  Preparation.— The  expert  should  be  given 
ample  time  in  which  to  make  his  preliminary  examination 
and  report.  Attorneys  frequently  wait  until  the  time  of  a 
trial  before  calling  an  expert,  and  then  often  find  that  he 
has  a  conflicting  engagement,  or  that  the  time  for  a  scien¬ 
tific  examination  is  not  sufficient.  Generally,  it  is  better  to 
have  the  report  in  writing,  with  reasons  for  conclusions.  A 
conference  should  be  held  with  the  expert,  at  which  each 
point  should  be  discussed.  In  this  way  the  attorney  will 
learn  the  strong  points  to  be  brought  out,  the  reasons  for 
them,  how  best  to  present  them,  the  expert’s  qualifications, 
and  what  is  needed  in  the  way  of  photographs  and  materials 
to  properly  illustrate  to  the  court  and  jury. 

Photographs. — -  If  the  case  is  to  go  before  a  jury,  by  all 
means  have  photographs  of  the  disputed  and  standard 
writings,  both  natural  size  and  enlarged.  If  signatures  are 
to  be  compared,  enlarged  copies  should  be  made.  A  photo¬ 
graph,  natural  size,  should  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  each 
of  the  jury  (or  at  least  one  for  every  two  jurymen),  besides 
which  there  should  be  one  for  the  court,  one  for  each  attor¬ 
ney,  and  one  for  the  witness.  If  enlarged  photographs  are 
used,  only  one  set  is  needed.  These  can  be  mounted  on 
cardboard  or  on  a  drawing-board  and  easel.  The  enlarge¬ 
ments  should  be  of  a  size  sufficient  for  court,  jury,  and 
attorneys  clearly  to  see  the  writing  in  detail  from  their  seats. 


256 


USE  OF  PHOTOGRAPHS  AND  BLACKBOARD. 


In  arranging  the  originals  to  be  photographed,  the  dis¬ 
puted  and  the  known  writings  should  be  juxtaposed,  so  as 
to  render  comparison  easy.  The  photographs  should  be 
proven  to  be  accurate  copies  of  the  originals  by  the  pho¬ 
tographer  who  made  them.  While  it  is  entirely  within  the 
discretion  of  the  court  whether  or  not  photographs  may 
be  admitted,  as  aids  to  comparison,  their  admission  is  now 
the  rule  ;  and  they  are  almost  invariably  allowed  when  not 
offered  in  evidence,  but  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating  the 
reasons  presented  by  the  expert.  The  originals  only  cai? 
be  accepted  as  evidence. 

Easel  or  Blackboard. —  The  expert  should  be  pro¬ 
vided  with  a  blackboard,  or  a  large  drawing-board  mounted 
on  an  easel.  The  latter  is  preferable,  as  then  large  sheets 
of  paper  may  be  used,  upon  which  illustrations  can  be 
drawn  with  black  crayon,  and  these  may  be  preserved  as 
exhibits,  if  necessary.  Thus  striking  points  of  similarity  or 
dissimilarity  between  the  standard  and  disputed  writings 
may  be  effectively  presented  to  court  and  jury.  Occasion¬ 
ally  the  opposing  counsel  may  object  to  the  use  of  such 
means  of  illustration,  but  our  higher  courts  have  ruled  in 
numerous  instances  that  it  is  perfectly  proper. 

Qualifying  an  Expert  Witness. — At  the  best,  the 
qualifying  of  an  expert  on  the  witness-stand  will  seem 
largely  egotistical  on  the  part  of  the  witness,  and  the  attor¬ 
neys  on  his  side  should  make  it  as  delicate  as  possible.  It 
saves  time,  trouble,  and  possible  loss  of  the  verdict  if  the 
expert  be  fully  qualified  before  being  permitted  to  testify. 
While  he  may  be  never  so  lucid  in  giving  reasons  for  his 
conclusions,  there  is  a  chance  of  one  or  more  of  the  jury 
not  being  able  to  comprehend  the  more  or  less  subtle  points 
in  his  explanation,  and  as  a  consequence  they  may  have  to 
take  his  testimony  on  faith.  This  faith  may  be  strength¬ 
ened  if  the  witness  is  qualified  fully  before  proceeding  to 
testify,  and  if  it  is  shown  that  he  is  a  man  who,  by  nature, 


QUALIFYING  QUESTIONS. 


257 


training,  and  experience,  is  qualified  in  every  way  to  give  a 
well-grounded  opinion. 

Questions  bringing  out  the  following  points  should  be 
asked  — 

1.  Age. 

2.  Occupation. 

3.  How  long  an  expert ;  how  many  cases,  and  in  what 
courts. 

4.  What  preliminary  training  (and  preparation  for  pres¬ 
ent  occupation)  before  engaging  in  the  present  calling. 

5.  Whether  author,  lecturer,  publisher,  member  of  any 
organization,  etc. 

6.  Any  other  questions  tending  to  show  education,  expe¬ 
rience,  and  standing  as  an  expert. 

Admission  of  Standards.—  Known  writings,  termed 
either  “  standards  ”  or  “  exemplars,”  should  be  selected 
with  great  care.  The  greater  the  number  and  the  nearer 
the  date  and  character  of  the  disputed  writing,  the  better. 
Signatures  to  legal  papers,  deeds,  mortgages,  wills,  leases, 
etc.,  as  well  as  notes,  receipts,  and  checks,  are  best.  Courts 
are  exceedingly  careful,  and  rightly  so,  about  the  writings 
admitted  as  “  standards.” 

An  expert  should  not  be  asked  to  use  as  a  standard  a 
single  signature  or  piece  of  writing  where  more  can  be 
obtained,  because  some  of  the  characteristics  of  the  writing 
in  question  may  be  lacking  from  any  particular  piece,  or  it 
may  embody  other  accidental  peculiarities  foreign  to  the 
habit  of  the  writer.  In  the  absence  of  proper  material  for 
comparison,  an  expert  should  decline  to  give  his  opinion  or 
testimony.  A  large  number  of  specimens  will  show  the 
general  handwriting  of  the  individual,  and  preclude  the 
probability  of  a  mistake  being  made  in  passing  judgment, 
which  might  occur  were  the  examination  confined  to  a 
single  brief  specimen,  which  might  not  properly  represent 
the  range  of  the  person’s  writing  habit. 


258  PENCIL  VERSUS  PEN-AND-INK  WRITING. 

If  the  disputed  writing  is  in  lead-pencil,  by  all  means 
secure  some  lead-pencil  standards,  if  possible ;  also  some 
ink  standards.  But  do  not  use  lead-pencil  standards,  (unless 
compelled  to  by  necessity)  for  comparison  with  disputed 
ink  writings,  as  it  is  obvious  that  writing  with  a  pencil  can 
not  contain  all  the  characteristics  of  pen-and-ink  writing. 
Especially  is  this  true  of  shading,  which  is  an  important 
factor  in  the  comparison  of  writing. 

Direct  Examination. —  After  exhibits  are  marked  for 
identification,  or  have  been  admitted  in  evidence,  hand  the 
disputed  document  to  the  witness  and  say  : — 

“  I  hand  you  ‘  Exhibit  No.  1 , ’  and  ask  when  and  where 
you  saw  it  first.” 

“  I  hand  you  ‘  Exhibits  A,’  ‘  B,’  ‘C,’  etc.,  [standards],  and 
ask  you  if  you  have  seen  those  before.” 

“  Have  you  examined  and  compared  the  handwriting  in 
the  two  sets  of  exhibits  [naming  them]?” 

“  Have  you  reached  a  conclusion  whether  or  not  they 
were  written  by  the  same  hand?” 

“What  is  that  conclusion?” 

“Give  to  the  court  and  jury,  in  your  own  way ,  your  rea¬ 
sons  for  this  conclusion.” 

Re-direct  Examination. —  During  cross-examination  it 
will  be  necessary  for  the  attorney  to  follow  closely  the 
questions  of  the  opposing  counsel  and  the  answers  of  the 
witness.  By  skillful  questioning  and  compelling  the  wit¬ 
ness  to  give  strictly  responsive  answers,  the  opposing  attor¬ 
ney  may  seem  to  make  the  witness  contradict  his  direct 
testimony.  The  watchful  attorney  should  make  a  note  of 
these  points,  and  when  he  sees  the  witness  struggling  to 
give  an  answer  that  will  tell  “the  whole  truth  and  nothing 
but  the  truth,”  but  by  calls  for  “responsive”  and  “yes  ”  or 
“  no  ”  answers,  is  compelled  to  say  the  opposite  or  only 
part  of  what  he  wants  to  say,  the  attorney  should  see  that 


RE-DIRECT  EXAMINATION. 


259 


the  witness,  on  re-direct  examination,  has  an  opportunity  to 
finish  his  answer  and  say  fully  what  he  sought  to  say  when 
under  cross-examination.  For  example:  On  direct  exami¬ 
nation  the  witness  may  have  pointed  out  the  resemblance 
in  the  case  of  a  certain  capital  letter — The  height,  shade, 
proportions,  openings,  angles,  turns,  etc.  The  opposing 
counsel  may  pick  out  the  same  letter  in  some  other  hand¬ 
writing  that  has  one  or  more  points  in  common  with  the 
disputed  writing  ;  or  he  may  take  still  another  capital  letter 
in  still  another  handwriting,  and  in  that  point  out  char¬ 
acteristics  common  to  the  standard  and  disputed  writings. 
In  this  way,  what  may  appear  to  the  jury  to  be  coincident 
in  the  handwritings  are  not  in  reality  characteristics  but 
mere  resemblances,  perhaps  only  the  accidents  of  several 
different  handwritings  —  no  two  of  them  coincident  in  any 
two  hands.  The  watchful  attorney  should  make  this  plain 
to  the  jury  by  his  re-direct  examination. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 


KINDS  OF  INKS  —  THEIR  COMPOSITION — COPYING  -  INK  —  SAFETY 

INK - COLORED  INKS  —  TESTS  OF  INKS,  FOR  THE  PURPOSE  OF 

DETERMINING  THEIR  IDENTITY - INK  ERASURES  BY  CHEMICALS 

AND  THEIR  RESTORATION  —  EVIDENCE  AS  TO  THE  RELATIVE 
AGES  OF  INK  UPON  DOCUMENTS  —  JUDGING  OF  THE  COLORS 
OF  INKS.* 

i 

Frequently  the  inks  used  in  the  writing  on  a  document 
will  be  of  great  assistance  in  determining  its  genuineness 
or  spuriousness.  If  interlineations,  alterations,  or  addi¬ 
tions  have  been  made,  it  is  practicable  for  the  expert  to  tell 
whether  or  not  the  entire  document  was  written  with  the 
same  ink,  and  approximately  the  ages  of  the  different  inks 
used. 

Several  important  cases  have  been  decided  by  experts 
proving  that  certain  constituents  of  the  inks  used  on  ques¬ 
tioned  documents  were  not  on  the  market,  and  consequently 
not  used  in  the  manufacture  of  ink  at  the  time  the  inks  in 
question  were  purported  to  have  been  applied  to  the  paper. 
The  Gordon  will  case,  in  Jersey  City,  New  Jersey,  in  1891, 
was  practically  determined  by  the  demonstration  by  experts 
that  eosin  —  a  product  unknown  at  the  time  the  interlinea¬ 
tion  in  the  will  was  said  to  have  been  made  (1867)  —  was 
used  to  produce  the  red  ink  with  which  some  important 
interlineations  had  been  made. 


*  We  are  indebted  to  Prof.  W.  T-  Kinsley,  a  skilled  handwriting,  ink  and 
paper  expert,  for  several  years  associated  with  the  writer  at  No.  202  Broadway, 
New  York  City,  for  the  preparation  of  the  chapters  on  inks  and  paper. 


COMPOSITION  OF  INKS. 


26l 


KINDS  OF  INKS. 

Iron  and  Tannin. —  Black  or  blue-black  writing-inks  in 
which  tannic  acids  and  ferric  oxide  (a  salt  of  iron)  are  the 
principal  constituents  are  the  inks  with  which  the  expert 
will  oftenest  have  to  deal.  Tannin  is  extracted  from  nut- 
galls  (Aleppo  or  Chinese  being  the  best),  oak  bark, 
sumach,  or  valonia,  and  can  be  obtained  from  practically  all 
vegetable  substances.  Most  of  the  inks  on  the  market  in 
which  tannin  is  used  are  made  by  macerating  nut-galls. 
After  maceration  and  fermentation  of  the  nut-gall  product, 
it  becomes  what  is  known  as  gallic  acid.  Pyrogallic  acid, 
catechutannic  acid,  kinotannic  acid,  and  morintannic  acid 
are  names  given  to  tannic  extracts  from  various  plants. 

The  various  tannins  when  combined  with  iron  salts  pro¬ 
duce  the  following  colors :  Gallic  acid  and  ferric  salts,  dark 
blue  ;  gallotannic  acid  and  ferric  salts,  black-blue  ;  catechu¬ 
tannic  acid  and  ferric  salts,  dirty  green ;  pyrogallic  acid 
with  ferrous  salts,  black-blue ;  kinotannic  acid  with  ferric 
salts,  black-green ;  morintannic  acid  with  ferric  salts,  dark 
green. 

Ferrous  salts  are  converted  into  ferric  salts  when  exposed 
to  air.  Ink  that  has  been  made  for  some  time  always  has 
some  ferric  salts  in  it. 

The  most  frequently  used  iron  salt  of  commerce  is  fer¬ 
rous  sulphate,  commonly  known  as  iron  vitriol,  green  vit¬ 
riol,  or  copperas.  It  is  made  by  pouring  dilute  sulphuric 
acid  over  iron -filings,  scraps,  etc.  The  liquid  is  filtered, 
and  is  usually  mixed  with  an  equal  quantity  of  spirit  of 
wine.  The  two  liquids  produce  a  delicate  pale-green  pow¬ 
der,  which  is  precipitated.  This  last  product  is  the  pure 
ferrous  sulphate. 

Ferric  sulphate  is  made  by  adding  some  nitric  acid  to  a 
solution  of  ferrous  sulphate  and  heating  to  the  boiling- 
point. 

In  addition  to  the  tannin  and  iron,  some  inspissating 


262 


COPYING -INK  AND  TEST. 


agent,  such  as  gum  or  dextrin,  is  used.  Preservative  matter, 
frequently  a  small  quantity  of  carbolic  acid,  is  used  in 
addition. 

Logwood  Inks. — -The  red  heart-wood  of  the  logwood- 
tree  ( Hcematoxylon  Campechianum ),  cut  from  trees  about 
ten  years  old,  is  the  logwood  of  commerce.  By  boiling  it 
in  water  it  gives  a  liquid  which  is  dark  red  in  color.  Dilute 
acids,  when  added  to  the  dark-red  liquid,  change  it  to 
crimson  color.  When  the  crimson  fluid  is  combined  with 
iron  salts  a  dark  blue-black  color  is  the  result. 

Logwood  inks  are  usually  a  combination  of  nut-galls, 
ferrous  sulphate,  and  gum,  as  well  as  logwood  extract,  and, 
of  course,  water.  Occasionally  vinegar  is  added,  and  some¬ 
times  chromate  of  potassium. 

Alizarin  Inks. —  Alizarin  is  the  red  coloring-  matter 
obtained  from  madder-root.  Practically  all  the  alizarin  on 
the  market  is  produced  by  artificial  processes.  Few  or 
none  of  the  so-called  alizarin  inks  contain  any  alizarin  what¬ 
ever.  The  inks  on  the  market  under  the  name  of  alizarin 
are  made  of  ferrous  tannate  in  a  dissolved  state  with  acetic 
or  sulphuric  acid.  The  coloring  matter  being  in  solution 
(no  sediment  forming),  and  possessing  great  fluidity, 
these  inks  are  popular  for  rapid  writing.  The  alizarin 
inks  are  too  pale  when  first  put  on  the  paper,  and  indigo- 
carmine  or  aniline  colors  are  added  to  strengthen  the  color. 

Copying-Inks. —  Any  substance  which  possesses  the 
property  of  absorbing  moisture  from  the  air  when  added  to 
ordinary  inks  changes  them  into  copying-inks.  Dextrin, 
glucose,  glycerin,  and  sugar  are  some  of  the  substances 
used. 

Copying- Ink  and  Test. —  Any  common  writing-ink  can 
be  changed  to  a  copying-ink  by  adding  a  small  quantity  of 


SAFETY  AND  COLORED  INKS.  263 

sugar,  gum  arabic,  or  glucose.  The  ready  test  for  a  copy¬ 
ing-ink  is  the  application  of  dampened  paper  under  the 
simple  pressure  of  the  thumb,  or  even  a  bit  of  tissue  paper 
touched  to  the  tongue  and  then  pressed  under  the  thumb 
against  the  ink-lines  which  it  is  desired  to  test. 

Aniline  Inks. —  Water-soluble  aniline  colors  are  used  to 
make  many  of  the  cheaper  inks  on  the  market.  While 
producing  brilliant  colors  at  the  first,  they  are  not  perma¬ 
nent,  and  are  dangerous  to  use  on  this  account.  But  a  small 
quantity  of  the  coloring  is  required,  as  it  is  strong ;  alcohol, 
water,  and  gum  arabic  are  the  other  constituents.  If  gly¬ 
cerin  is  added,  it  will  become  copying-ink. 

Safety  Inks. — So-called  safety  and  bankers’  inks  are 
made  from  carbon  or  vanadium.  Carbon  inks  are  unaf¬ 
fected  by  acids,  but  may  easily  be  removed  from  paper  by 
carefully  washing  with  water. 

Printing-inks  (which  are  made  from  carbon  or  lamp¬ 
black)  contain  varnish,  and  this  penetrates  the  paper  and 
carries  the  carbon  with  it.  Printing-inks  cannot  be  removed 
by  washing,  but  owing  to  their  thickness  (being  pasty),  they 
cannot  be  used  for  writing. 

Vanadium  ink  is  made  from  filtered  nut-galls  and  ammo¬ 
nium  vanadate. 

Shellac,  borax,  soluble  Berlin  (or  Prussian)  blue,  resin, 
soda,  water-glass,  etc.,  are  also  used  in  the  manufacture  of 
safety  inks. 

Colored  Inks. —  The  discovery  of  aniline  has  made  it 
possible  to  produce  inks  of  practically  any  color.  Aniline 
inks  are  fugitive  and  unsafe  to  use  where  permanency  is 
desired. 

Red  ink  is  the  kind  most  frequently  met  with  by  the 
expert.  Brazil-wood  and  cochineal  have  been  longest  used 
to  make  red  ink,  but  the  chemical  preparation  fuchsine,  or 


264  ANILINE  AND  COLORED  PENCILS. 

aniline  red,  is  now  largely  used  in  the  cheaper  inks.  Brazil¬ 
wood  and  cochineal  inks  are  made  by  adding  hydrated 
chloride  of  tin,  alum,  tartaric  acid,  ammonia,  gum,  etc.,  to 
the  main  ingredients. 

Aniline  inks  are  made  by  dissolving  the  coloring  matter 
in  water  and  adding  gum  arabic. 

Indigo-carmine  and  insoluble  Prussian  blue,  are  used  in 
making  blue  inks. 

Aniline  and  Colored  Pencils. —  Aniline,  kaolin,  and 
graphite,  when  properly  mixed,  produce  pencils  that  make 
marks  which  cannot  be  removed  with  the  ordinary  (rubber) 
pencil  eraser.  When  wet,  the  marks  made  by  such  pencils 
assume  the  appearance  of  ink-lines  and  will  give  a  copy 
also. 

Nigrosine  for  black,  methyl-violet  or  water-soluble  blue 
for  violet  and  blue,  fuchsine  for  red,  are  the  principal  colors 
used. 

Sympathetic  Inks. — 'It  is  seldom  that  sympathetic  inks 
play  any  part  in  the  expert’s  examination.  Inks  that  dis¬ 
appear,  appear,  or  change  color  are  called  sympathetic  inks. 
To  understand  these  inks  it  is  necessary  to  know  the  con¬ 
stituents  of  the  inks  and  to  know  the  proper  reagent  to  use 
to  produce  the  desired  result.  A  saturated  solution  of 
oxalic  acid  heated  to  boiling,  with  molybdic  acid  added  until 
no  more  will  dissolve,  will  produce  a  black  sympathetic  ink. 
This  ink  should  be  kept  in  a  black  bottle.  Exposure  to 
sunlight  turns  writing  executed  with  this  ink  dark  blue, 
and  it  becomes  black  when  heated. 

Stamping -Inks. — Gum  arabic,  glycerin,  and  water,  with 
the  addition  of  coloring  matter,  form  stamping-inks.  Eosin 
for  red,  nigrosin  for  black,  methyl-violet  for  violet,  are  some 
of  the  substances  used.  Pyroligneous  acid,  alcohol,  and 
sugar  are  also  used  in  addition  to  coloring  matter  to  pro¬ 
duce  stamping-inks. 


INK  TESTS. 


265 


Typewriter  Inks. —  Typewriter  inks  are  frequently 
questioned,  and  it  becomes  necessary  for  the  examiner  to 
know  something  of  them.  Well-ground  permanent  color, 
vaseline,  glycerin,  wax,  benzine,  and  turpentine  are  the 
constituents.  This  ink  is  applied  to  the  ribbon  by  means 
of  brushes.  Aniline  colors  are  extensively  used  in  the 
manufacture  of  copying-ribbons,  and  carbon  is  most  used 
for  best  record  ribbon  inks. 

Ruling- Inks.  —  Berlin  blue  dissolved  in  yellow  prussiate 
of  potash,  gum-water,  and  warm  water  will  produce  a  blue 
ink  for  faint  ruling. 

Ink  Tests.  —  The  decision  in  many  important  cases  has 
hinged  on  the  ink ;  whether  two  or  more  pieces  of  writing 
were  made  with  one  or  more  inks.  It  is  also  important  at 
times  to  know  what  were  the  main  constituents  used  in 
certain  inks,  as,  for  example,  iron,  nut-galls,  logwood, 
nigrosin,  vanadium,  etc.  Visual  and  microscopical  exami¬ 
nations  of  disputed  writings  often  arouse  suspicion  that  a 
chemical  test  alone  will  settle.  If  a  document  purports  to 
be  all  written  with  one  and  the  same  ink,  and  it  can  be 
clearly  shown  by  chemical  tests  that  one  ink  is  iron  and  the 
other  logwood,  nigrosin,  or  some  different  ink,  the  impor¬ 
tance  of  such  a  demonstration  can  be  seen  at  once. 

(The  table  printed  herewith  is  from  the  Journal  of  the 
Society  of  Chemical  Industry,  October  31,  1892.  It  origi¬ 
nally  appeared  in  the  Pharmaceutische  Central- Halle, 
JSFeue  Folge,  No.  13,  1892,  page  225,  by  A.  Robertson  and 
J.  Hofman.  It  is  a  valuable  list  of  tests,  and  will  furnish  a 
guide  as  to  reagents  to  use  in  reactions  on  the  principal 
inks  of  commerce.) 

Determining  Age  of  Ink.— To  determine  the  exact 
age  of  writings  by  the  ink  used  is  impossible.  The 
approximate  age  may  be  determined  with  some  degree  of 


TESTS  FOR  INKS. 

Draw  a  moistened  quill,  or  gold  pen,  over  the  ink  mark,  and  observe  with  a  magnifying-glass. 


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METHOD  OF  TESTING  INKS. 


267 


certainty.  If  ink-writings  are  but  a  few  days  old,  it  is  easy 
to  distinguish  them  from  other  writings  years  old.  But  to 
tell  by  the  ink  which  of  two  writings  is  the  older,  when  one 
is  but  two  months  and  the  other  two  years,  is,  as  a  rule, 
impossible. 

Where  during  the  progress  of  a  trial  a  document  pur¬ 
porting  to  be  years  old  is  introduced  in  evidence,  and  it  can 
be  shown  that  it  is  but  a  few  days  old,  having  been  prepared 
for  the  occasion,  ordinarily  the  age  of  the  writing  will  be 
comparatively  easy  of  demonstration  by  the  expert.  Oxi¬ 
dization  will  not  have  set  in  to  any  extent,  if  the  ink 
is  very  fresh,  and  this,  with  a  careful  watching  of  the  color 
for  any  darkening,  will  determine  whether  or  not  the  ink  is 
fresh. 

Ammonia  Test. —  A  ten-per-cent,  solution  of  ammonia 
applied  to  two  inks  in  question  will  show  which  is  the 
fresher.  The  older  ink  will  resist  the  action  of  the  ammonia 
longer  and  give  up  less  soluble  matter  than  the  newer  writ¬ 
ing.  Nut-gall,  and  logwood  inks,  of  course,  should  not 
be  tested  comparatively  by  this  method,  as  the  logwood 
ink  will  respond  to  the  ammonia  sooner  than  the  nut-gall 
ink.  - 

Carre’s  Method. —  F.  Carre  gives  a  method  for  deter¬ 
mining,  approximately,  the  age  of  ink- writings.  If  the 
writing  is  in  iron  ink,  and  is  moistened  with  a  solution  of 
one  part  of  hydrochloric  acid  to  eleven  parts  of  water  and 
put  in  letter-copying  press  and  copy  transferred  to  copy- 
paper  it  should  give  a  strong  copy,  if  but  ten  years  old ;  a 
hardly  legible  copy,  if  thirty  years  old  ;  and  if  sixty  years  old, 
a  few  marks  will  be  copied,  but  they  will  not  be  legible. 

If  the  same  solution  be  used  in  place  of  water,  as  in  the 
ordinary  letter-copying  process,  and  the  copying  paper  be 
saturated  with  it,  the  result  will  be  the  same. 

To  determine  the  age  of  writing  by  applying  bleaching 


268 


TO  DISCOVER  ERASURES. 


acids  and  watching  results  and  counting  the  seconds,  is  a 
dangerous  method.  Thick  inks  will  respond  to  the  acids 
slower  than  thin,  and  the  time  comparisons  are  misleading. 


TO  DETERMINE  WHETHER  OR  NOT  PAPERS  CONTAIN 

ERASURES. 

If  Scratched. —  The  suspected  document  should  be 
examined  by  reflected  and  transmitted  light.  Examine 
the  surface  for  rough  spots.  Forgers  after  erasures  fre¬ 
quently  endeavor  to  hide  the  scratched  and  roughened 
surface  by  applying  a  sizing  of  alum,  sandarach  powder, 
etc.,  rubbing  it  to  restore  the  finish  to  the  paper. 

Water. — Distilled  water  applied  to  the  suspected  docu¬ 
ment  at  the  particular  points  under  examination  will  dis¬ 
solve  the  sizing  applied  by  the  forger.  If  held  to  the  light 
the  thinning  will  show.  The  water  may  ben applied^  wirhTf 
small  brush  or  a  medicine-dropper.  Water  slightly  warmed 
may  be  used  with  good  results  at  times. 

Alcohol. — -Alcohol,  if  applied  as  described  for  water, 
will  act  more  promptly  and  show  the  scratched  places.  It 
may  be  well  to  use  water  first  and  then  alcohol. 

Chemical  Erasures. —  To  discover  whether  or  not  acids 
were  used  to  erase,  if  moistened  litmus-paper  be  applied  to 
the  writing,  the  litmus-paper  will  become  slightly  red  if 
there  is  any  acid  remaining  on  the  suspected  document.  If 
the  suspected  spots  be  treated  with  distilled  water,  or  alcohol, 
as  already  described,  the  doctored  places  will  show,  when 
examined  in  strong  light. 


RESTORING  PARTIALLY  OBLITERATED  AND 
FADED  INK. 

Old  Writings. —  The  writing  on  old  and  faded  docu¬ 
ments  may  be  restored  (if  the  ink  used  had  an  iron  base) 


TO  RESTORE  PARTIAL  ERASURES. 


269 


by  chemical  treatment,  turning  the  iron  salt  still  remaining 
into  ferrous  sulphate.  A  process  which  will  restore  the 
writing  temporarily  (for  three  or  four  days)  is  as  follows  :  A 
box  (wood  or  pasteboard)  four  or  five  inches  deep  and  long 
and  broad  enough  to  hold  the  document,  with  a  glass,  is 
needed.  A  net  of  fine  white  silk  or  cotton  threads  is 
stretched  across  the  box  at  about  one-half  the  depth. 
Two  saucers  containing  yellow  ammonium  hydrosulphide 
are  placed  in  the  bottom  of  the  box.  By  means  of  a  clean 
sponge  or  brush,  moisten  (not  soak)  the  paper  with  dis¬ 
tilled  water ;  then  place  it  on  the  net  with  the  writing-side 
down.  The  action  of  the  vapor  of  the  ammonium  hydro¬ 
sulphide  will  cause  the  obliterated  writing  to  slowly  turn 
brown,  then  black.  But  within  a  short  time  after  removal 
from  the  box  the  writing  will  again  disappear. 

Other  Methods. — Wash  the  document  carefully  in  a 
solution  of  hydrochloric  acid,  one  part,  and  distilled  water, 
one  hundred  parts.  Dry  the  moistened  paper  somewhat, 
leaving  it  just  enough  to  hold  a  uniform  layer  of  fine  yellow 
prussiate  of  potash.  A  plate  of  glass  with  a  light  pressure 
should  be  placed  on  this.  In  a  few  hours  dry  the  paper 
thoroughly,  and  carefully  brush  off  the  yellow  prussiate  of 
potash.  The  writing  should  come  out  a  Prussian  blue. 
This  restored  writing  will  be  permanent  unless  exposed  too 
much  to  the  light. 

The  hydrochloric  acid  must  be  thoroughly  removed ; 
otherwise,  it  will  destroy  the  paper.  Crystallized  soda,  two 
parts,  and  distilled  water,  one  hundred  parts,  in  solution, 
will  counteract  the  hydrochloric  acid,  if  the  document  is 
allowed  to  float  on  it  for  twenty-four  hours. 

The  following  treatment  will  usually  restore  chemically 
erased  or  partially  obliterated  writing,  if  enough  of  the  base 
of  the  ink  be  left  in  the  paper  for  reagents  to  attack :  The 
part  of  the  document  which  has  been  erased  must  first 
be  moistened  with  a  solution  composed  of  ammonia,  one 


270 


DECIPHERING  PENCIL  ERASURES. 


part,  distilled  water,  one  part,  and  alcohol,  two  parts.  After 
the  paper  dries  from  this  application,  paint  over  the  same 
spot  with  the  ferro-cyanide  of  potassium.  If  any  iron  is 
left  in  the  fiber  of  the  paper,  this  will  bring  out  a  strong 
Prussian  blue. 

DECIPHERING  PENCIL  ERASURES. 

It  is  often  desirable  to  decipher  pencil-writing  which  has 
been  removed,  or  partially  so,  by  rubbing.  This  is  often 
accomplished  through  the  proper  study  of  the  indented 
lines,  which  will  remain  more  or  less  in  the  paper  "after  the 
graphite  or  plumbago  has  all  been  removed.  By  examin¬ 
ing  the  furrows  under  a  strong  side  or  horizontal  light,  their 
shadows  will  sometimes  reveal  the  outlines  of  the  former 
writing.  Frequently  a  greatly  enlarged  photograph  will 
aid  in  the  deciphering. 

JUDGING  OF  INKS. 

Nothing  is  more  difficult  than  to  judge  of  the  color  of 
ink  by  its  visual  appearance.  Ink  used  from  the  same 
bottle  may  be  made  to  present  a  widely  varying  appear¬ 
ance.  It  will  vary  according  to  the  time  of  exposure  to  the 
atmosphere,  the  degree  of  evaporation,  and  the  accumula¬ 
tion  of  dust,  which  loads  it  down  with  coloring  matter. 
It  will  also  vary  if  a  new  or  an  old,  a  fine  or  a  coarse  pen 
is  used,  or  if  the  writing  is  shaded  or  unshaded. 

Although  it  may  from  these  causes  present  a  different 
general  effect  to  the  untrained  and  unaided  eye,  yet  with 
the  help  of  a  microscope,  a  skilled  examiner  will  reach  a 
very  reliable  conclusion  respecting  the  sameness  of  inks. 
But,  after  all,  a  chemical  test  is  the  only  absolute  demon¬ 
stration. 

To  make  the  usual  chemical  tests  does  not  necessarily 
involve  any  technical  knowledge  of  chemistry.  When  the 
question  arises  as  to  whether  or  not  two  writings  are  made 


JUDGING  INKS  BY  THEIR  VISUAL  APPEARANCE.  27 1 

with  the  same  ink,  an  acid  test  (oxalic  acid  or  muriate  of 
tin)  is  applied.  Ink  which  contains  a  gallate  of  iron  will 
turn  green ;  that  containing  logwood  will  turn  red  ;  that 
having  aniline  will  turn  a  purplish  green.  Carbon  inks 
will  remain  unchanged,  while  inks  of  different  manufacture 
may  be  so  nearly  from  the  same  formula  as  to  respond 
approximately  to  the  test.  However,  where  the  response 
to  one  ink  is  red  and  to  the  other  green,  the  result  is  proof 
absolute. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 


PAPER  — MATERIALS  USED  AND  METHODS  OF  MANUFACTURE  — 
WATER-MARKS,  ERASURES,  ETC. 

It  is  seldom  that  the  expert  is  called  upon  to  examine 
writing  on  any  other  material  than  paper.  Very  infre¬ 
quently  the  questioned  writing  may  be  on  parchment.  It 
would  take  several  pages  of  a  book  like  this  to  print 
simply  the  names  of  the  materials  from  which  paper 
is  manufactured.  The  best  writing-papers  are  made  of 
linen  and  cotton  rags.  Inferior  writing-papers  have  wood, 
esparto,  straw,  corn-stalks,  and  old  paper  in  them.  The 
writing-paper  most  commonly  met  with  is  that  made  from 
(i)  pure  linen  rags,  (2)  linen  and  cotton  rags,  or  (3)  rags 
and  wood-pulp.  Of  course,  there  are  other  ingredients 
used  in  the  manufacture  of  paper. 

In  order  to  be  able  to  judge  of  paper,  it  will  be  neces¬ 
sary  to  understand  something  of  its  manufacture.  When 
rags  are  received  at  the  mill,  they  are  assorted,  and  cut  into 
small  pieces  (usually  by  hand,  drawing  the  pieces  across  a 
scythe-like  blade) ;  then  they  are  dusted  and  boiled,  to 
get  out  the  dirt.  In  the  production  of  “half-stuff,”  or 
bleached  pulp,  the  rags  are  put  into  a  washing-engine,  con¬ 
sisting  of  a  vat  containing  a  cylinder  with  rapidly  revolving 
arms  to  which  knives  are  fastened.  From  this  machine 
the  cleaned  and  pulp-like  mass  is  transferred  to  the  beat¬ 
ing-engine.  Chlorine  is  added  to  the  pulp,  to  aid  in  bleach¬ 
ing,  and  often  hyposulphite  of  sodium  is  also  added  to 
neutralize  the  effect  of  the  chlorine.  In  engine-sized  papers 


PAPER-MAKING. 


273 


(the  cheaper  grades)  loading,  consisting  of  clay,  kaolin, 
etc.,  is  added  after  the  washing  is  finished;  then  the  sizing 
is  put  into  the  vat,  and  to  this  is  added  the  alum  and  color¬ 
ing  matter. 

Engine-sized  papers  have  a  preparation  of  resin  soap 
treated  with  alum  mixed  with  the  pulp  in  the  beating-engine. 
A  small  quantity  of  starch  is  also  added  to  unite  the  fibers 
of  the  paper  and  render  it  less  spongy. 

Animal-sized  papers  are  of  the  higher  grades,  and  are 
best  adapted  for  writing  purposes.  Hide  and  skin  trim¬ 
mings,  animal  hoofs,  eel-skins,  etc.,  furnish  the  material 
from  which  animal  sizing  is  made.  Alum  is  added  to  the 
jelly  obtained  from  the  steeping  and  boiling  of  these  ingre¬ 
dients.  To  this  mixture  finely  powdered  lime  is  added, 
and  the  whole  is  then  heated  to  seventy-seven  degrees 
Fahrenheit. 

From  the  beating-engine  the  pulp,  now  white  and  look- 
ing  “good  enough  to  eat,’;  is  drained  and  pressed,  to 
remove  the  water,  etc.  It  is  then  carried  to  the  stuff-chest; 
and  from  there  is  run  into  a  thin  and  wide  sheet  upon  an 
endless  metallic  (wire)  cloth.  This  cloth,  with  the  pulp, 
moves  on  through  various  cylinders,  some  of  them  covered 
with  felt.  The  heated  cylinders  and  pressing-rolls  squeeze 
out  the  water  and  dry  the  pulp.  The  paper  then  passes 
between  cylinder  cutters  which  trim  the  edges  and  slit  it 
into  any  desired  widths.  It  is  then  cut  into  sheets.  These 
sheets  are  placed  on  poles  in  a  heated  loft  and  left  for  some 
time  to  thoroughly  dry.  This  is  known  as  “  loft-dried  ” 
paper,  and  of  course  only  applies  to  the  better  and  higher- 
priced  grades. 

Some  papers  are  “  double-sized,” — that  is,  both  engine 
and  animal-sized. 

The  hard-finished  surface  is  imparted  by  calendering, — 
that  is,  running  the  paper  between  polished  (and  some¬ 
times  heated)  cylinders,  or  by  placing  the  sheets  of  paper 
between  metal  plates  and  running  them  through  the  cylin- 


274 


WATER-MARK  IN  PAPER. 


ders.  The  latter  method  is  quite  common  in  Europe,  but 
is  little  used  in  the  United  States.  Gypsum  and  plaster  of 
paris,  etc.,  are  used  to  produce  a  high  and  hard-calendered 
surface. 

Water-  Mark. — The  water-mark  in  paper  is  made  by  the 
“dandy-roll  ”  while  the  pulp  is  in  a  condition  to  receive  and 
retain  an  impression.  The  dandy-roll  is  made  of  wire, 
with  the  lettering  or  design  raised,  and  the  wholq-Us 
mounted  in  cylinder  form.  As  the  thin  sheet  of  pulp  passes 
along  on  the  drying-machine,  the  dandy-roll  revolves  with 
it,  and  at  regular  intervals  impresses  the  water-mark  upon 
the  half-dried  continuous  sheet.  This  impression  causes  a 
thinning  of  the  paper  at  that  point,  and  when  it  is  held 
between  the  eye  and  the  light  the  water  -  mark  is  plainly 
seen.  The  water-mark  identifies  the  paper  with  the  manu¬ 
facturer,  and  frequently  the  age  of  the  paper  itself  can  be 
determined  from  it.  If  it  can  be  shown  that  the  sheet  of 
paper  on  which  a  purported  thirty-year-old  document  is 
written  is  but  ten  years  old,  its  use  to  the  expert  is  obvious. 

Iron  in  Water  Used.— The  water  used  in  paper¬ 
making  may  contain  iron,  and  when  a  document  is  tested 
for  iron  the  iron  in  the  paper  may  deceive  the  expert. 
Adulterants  and  chemicals  may  introduce  small  quantities 
of  iron  into  the  pulp  with  the  same  results. 

Erasures  by  Scratching. —  By  holding  the  sheet  of 
paper  between  the  eye  and  the  light,  any  thin  places  will 
appear,  and  if  erasures  by  scratching  have  been  made,  the 
smooth-calendered  surface  of  the  paper,  together  with  the 
animal  sizing,  will  be  disturbed.  The  fibers  will  also  exhibit 
a  torn-up  appearance,  especially  if  a  strong  microscope  is 
used  in  making  the  examination. 

A  blurred  appearance  of  the  ink-lines  will  appear  when¬ 
ever  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  write  over  an  erasure  of 
this  kind.  Sometimes  attempts  are  made  to  resize  papers 


RE-SIZING  PAPER. 


275 


over  erasures.  If  this  is  suspected,  Tarry  recommends 
moistening  the  spot  with  alcohol.  If  paste  and  resin  both 
have  been  used  in  the  resizing,  it  will  be  necessary  to  apply 
lukewarm  water  first,  then  alcohol.  After  the  paste  and 
resin  have  been  removed,  the  ink  spreads  or  blurs.  The 
water  and  alcohol  applied  to  another  ink-line  in  the  same 
document  where  there  has  been  no  erasure  will  serve  to 
show  the  contrast. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 


DIVINATION  OF  CHARACTER  FROM  HANDWRITING — SOME  REMARKA¬ 
BLE  INSTANCES  QUOTED. 

Some  of  our  readers  may  have  come  across  a  picturesque 
individual  very  much  in  evidence  at  country  fairs,  usually 
ornamented  with  a  scarlet  robe  and  immaculate  turban,  who 
impressed  upon  the  assembled  multitude  with  brave  insist¬ 
ence  his  extraordinary  powers  of  reading  character  and 
establishing  personal  identity  by  means  of  handwriting. 
The  writer  remembers  to  have  seen  such  a  one,  who 
announced  with  great  vigor  that  if  the  ladies  and  gentlemen 
gathered  together  would  be  so  kind  as  to  copy  a  certain 
formula  and  submit  the  slips  while  he  retired  to  a  neighbor¬ 
ing  tent  to  commune  with  Mahatma,  or  some  one  else,  he 
would  undertake,  for  the  modest  consideration  of  twenty- 
five  cents  a  head,  not  only  to  tell  the  age  and  the  sex  of  each 
writer,  but  to  describe  his  or  her  station  in  life,  whether 
married  or  single,  and  also  to  select  from  the  whole  body 
of  writers  the  particular  author  of  each  line.  The  wonder¬ 
ful  part  of  it  was  the  accuracy  and  approximate  truth  of  the 
readings  and  the  exceedingly  small  number  of  errors  in 
identifying  a  particular  writer.  As  to  how  much  of  this  was 
really  based  on  the  handwriting  and  how  much  was  shrewd 
guesswork  and  conclusions  arrived  at  from  the  appearance, 
conversation,  etc.,  of  the  individual  writers,  is  of  course  a 
matter  of  surmise.  Equally,  of  course,  those  who  claim  to 
be  able  to  do  all  these  things  and  more  (some  even  claim  to 
tell  the  color  of  hair  and  eyes  and  to  make  a  very  minute 
analysis  of  mental,  moral,  and  physical  characteristics)  sub- 


GRAPHOLOGY. 


2  77 


ject  themselves  to  a  very  fair  suspicion  of  charlatanism. 
Yet  no  one  who  has  investigated  the  subject  will  be  disposed 
to  question  the  fact  that  a  man’s  handwriting  normally  takes 
on  the  color  of  his  mental  and  muscular  attributes  to  a 
degree  sufficient  to  serve  a  useful  purpose  as  an  index  on 
broad  lines,  and  from  which  may  be  divined  very  much 
respecting  his  character.* 

Graphology,  or  the  reading  of  character  from  handwrit¬ 
ing,  has  had  many  enthusiastic  votaries,  some  of  whom 
have  attained  to  a  marvelous  degree  of  skill  in  their  delinea¬ 
tions  of  character  and  other  personal  distinctions  from 
handwriting,  rarely,  if  ever,  failing  to  determine  the  sex  or 
nationality  of  the  writer,  and  approximating  the  age  quite 
as  closely  as  would  be  done  from  seeing  the  persons  them¬ 
selves.  Take,  for  instance,  a  collection  of  signatures 
written  by  persons  of  different  nationalities  —  American, 
English,  German,  French,  etc.  One  who  is  familiar  with 
the  writing  of  such  nationalities  will  distinguish  between 
them  with  about  as  much  certainty  as  he  would  between  the 
groups  of  persons  by  whom  they  were  written.  (See  cuts 
on  pages  30-32.) 

Persons  having  strong  and  conspicuous  traits  of  char¬ 
acter  manifest  them  in  handwriting.  Says  Archbishop 
Whately  : — 

“  I  had  once  a  remarkable  proof  that  handwriting  is,  sometimes,  at 
least,  an  index  to  character.  I  had  a  pupil  at  Oxford  whom  I  liked 
in  most  respects  greatly.  There  was  but  one  thing  about  him  which 
seriously  dissatisfied  me  and  that,  I  often  told  him,  was  his  handwriting. 
It  was  not  bad,  as  writing,  but  it  had  a  mean,  shuffling  character  in  it, 
which  always  inspired  me  with  a  feeling  of  suspicion.  While  he 
remained  at  Oxford  I  saw  nothing  to  justify  this  suspicion,  but  a  trans¬ 
action  in  which  he  afterwards  engaged,  and  in  which  I  saw  more  of 
his  character  than  I  had  before,  convinced  me  that  the  writing  had 
spoken  truly.” 

*  Personality  in  handwriting  is  made  the  subject  of  another  chapter,  to 
which  the  reader  is  referred. 


278 


WRITING  VERSUS  PERSONAL  APPEARANCE. 


Another  writer  mentions  this  incident : — 

“A  curious  case  was  one  in  which  a  celebrated  graphologist  was 
able  to  judge  of  character  more  correctly  by  handwriting  than  he  had 
been  able  to  do  by  personal  observation.  He  was  on  a  visit  to  a 
friend’s  house,  where  among  other  guests  he  met  a  lady  whose  con¬ 
versation  and  manners  greatly  impressed  him,  and  dbA  whom  he 
conceived  a  strong  friendship,  based  on  the  esteem  he  felt  for  her  as  a 
singularly  truthful,  pure-minded,  and  single-hearted  woman.  The  lady 
of  the  house,  who  knew  her  character  to  be  the  very  reverse  of  what 

she  seemed,  was  curious  to  know  whether  Mr.  - -  would  be  able  to 

discover  this  by  her  handwriting.  Accordingly,  she  procured  a  slip  of 
this  lady’s  writing  (having  ascertained  he  had  never  seen  it)  and  gave  it 
to  him  one  evening  as  the  handwriting  of  a  friend  of  hers  whose  charac¬ 
ter  she  wished  him  to  decipher.  His  usual  habit,  when  he  undertook  to 
exercise  this  power,  was  to  take  a  slip  of  a  letter,  cut  down  lengthwise 
so  as  not  to  show  any  sentences,  to  his  room  at  night,  and  to  bring  it 
down  the  next  morning  with  his  judgment  of  the  writing.  On  this 
occasion,  when  the  party  was  seated  at  the  breakfast-table,  the  lady 
whose  writing  he  had  unwittingly  been  examining  made  some  observa¬ 
tion  which  particularly  struck  Mr.  - as  seeming  to  betoken  a  very 

noble  and  truthful  character.  He  expressed  his  admiration  for  her 
sentiments  very  warmly,  adding  at  the  same  time  to  the  lady  of  the 
house,  1  Not  so,  by-the-way,  your  friend,’  and  he  put  into  her  hand  the 
slip  of  writing  of  her  guest  which  she  had  given  him  the  evening  before, 
over  which  he  had  written  the  words,  ‘  Fascinating,  false,  and  hollow- 

hearted.  ’  The  lady  of  the  house  kept  the  secret,  and  Mr.  - never 

knew  that  the  writing  on  which  he  pronounced  so  severe  a  judgment 
was  that  of  the  friend  he  so  greatly  admired.” 

Lavater,  the  great  Swiss  physiognomist,  thus  records  his 
opinion : — 

“  Individual  writing  is  inimitable.  The  more  I  compare  the  different 
handwritings  which  fall  in  my  way,  the  more  I  am  confirmed  in  the 
idea  that  they  are  so  many  expressions  of  so  many  emanations  of  char¬ 
acter  of  the  writer.  Every  country,  every  nation,  every  city  has  its 
peculiar  handwriting.” 

We  quote  from  another  enthusiastic  but  not(too  extrava¬ 
gant  believer  in  graphology  : — 

“There  is  no  question  about  the  fact  that  there  have  been  persons 


A  SURPRISING  INCIDENT. 


279 


who  attain  the  same  ability  of  discovering,  in  a  single  specimen  of  hand¬ 
writing,  the  character,  the  occupation,  the  habit,  the  temperament,  the 
health,  the  age,  the  sex,  the  size,  the  nationality,  the  benevolence  or 
penuriousness,  the  boldness  or  the  timidity,  the  morality,  the  affection 
or  the  hypocrisy,  and  often  the  intention,  of  the  writer.  The  skill  of 
deciphering  character  from  handwriting  has  been,  in  certain  rare  cases, 
cultivated  to  the  extent  that  forgeries  could  be  detected  at  a  glance,  and 
persons  passing  under  assumed  names  exposed,  from  the  manner  in 
which  they  wrote  their  assumed  names.  A  skillful  analyzer  of  hand¬ 
writing  can  point  out  where  a  writer  is  firm  in  his  purpose  and  his 
nerves  are  well  braced,  or  where  his  fears  overcome  resolution,  where 
he  pauses  to  recover  his  courage,  where  he  changes  his  pen,  and  the 
various  other  contingencies  incident  to  forgery. 

“  Persons  have  attained  such  proficiency  in  reading  character  from 
handwriting,  that  it  is  recorded  of  one  who  made  this  subject  a  study, 
that  at  a  meeting  of  the  directors  of  a  bank,  none  of  whom  knew  the 
gentleman,  nor  were  known  by  him,  it  was  arranged  that  he  should 
meet  them  and  exhibit  his  skill.  The  first  experiment  was  this  :  Each 
director  wrote  on  a  piece  of  paper  the  names  of  all  the  board.  Eleven 
lists  were  handed  him,  and  he  specified  the  writer  of  each  by  the  man¬ 
ner  in  which  he  wrote  his  own  name.  He  then  asked  them  to  write 
their  own  or  any  other  names,  with  as  much  disguise  as  they  pleased, 
and  as  many  as  pleased  writing  on  the  same  paper,  and  in  every 
instance  he  named  the  writer.  Another  experiment:  The  superscrip¬ 
tion  of  a  letter  was  shown  him.  He  began  :  ‘  A  clergyman,  who  reads 
his  sermons,  and  is  a  little  short-sighted ;  aged  sixty-one,  six  feet  high, 
weighs  one  hundred  and  seventy  pounds,  lean,  bony,  obstinate,  irri¬ 
table —  ’  ‘Come,  come,’  said  one  of  them,  ‘you  are  disclosing 
altogether  too  much  of  my  father-in-law.’ 

“  A  forged  note  which  had  been  discounted  by  the  cashier  was  pre¬ 
sented.  He  (the  gentleman)  analyzed  the  forged  signature  so  vividly  and 
truthfully,  pointing  out  one  of  the  members  of  the  board  of  directors 
as  the  executor  of  the  note,  and  he  (the  forger)  fell  to  the  floor  as  if 
dead.  What  seemed  at  the  time  an  impossibility  to  the  other  members 
of  the  board,  namely,  that  one  who  had  stood  so  high  in  their  estima¬ 
tion,  and  whose  character  had  been  unimpeached,  should  be  guilty  of 
such  a  crime.  The  ‘  graphtomancer’s  ’  assertion  was  pronounced  impos¬ 
sible  by  all,  and  yet  subsequent  investigation,  and  the  confession  of  the 
forger,  proved  him  to  have  been  correct. 

“  Such  are  a  few  of  the  alleged  facts,  corroborative  of  the  claim  that 
handwriting  is  an  index  of  character.  When  the  subject  is  fully  inves¬ 
tigated,  it  undoubtedly  will  appear  that  writing  is  not  a  mere  chimerical 


28o 


AN  INCIDENT  OF  THE  WRITER. 


art,  but  that  it  is  an  outburst  of  the  heart,  an  exponent  of  life  and 
character,  more  reliable  than  the  delineations  of  the  countenance  to  the 
physiognomist.  ” 

Not  long  since  the  writer  was  present  with  a  party  of 
ladies  and  gentlemen  where  the  reading  of  character  from 
handwriting  was  the  subject  under  discussion,  when  one  of 
the  ladies  took  from  her  pocket  two  letters,  and  handing 
them  to  him,  asked  an  expression  of  his  opinion  respecting 
their  authors.  Inspecting  one  of  them,  he  said,  “  The 
writer  was  upward  of  sixty  years  of  age,  a  careful,  methodi¬ 
cal,  experienced  business  man,  and  probably  the  head  of 
some  corporation  or  large  business.”  Inspecting  the  writ¬ 
ing  of  the  other  letter  he  said,  “  The  writer  of  this  is 
between  thirty  and  forty  years  of  age,  a  keen,  active  man 
of  affairs,  probably  the  secretary  or  chief  clerk  of  a  cor¬ 
poration  or  a  large  business  house.”  The  lady  who  had 
solicited  the  opinion  at  once  clapped  her  hands,  exclaiming 
that  nothing  could  be  more  truthful,  adding  that  the  one 
was  president  of  a  savings  and  loan  company  and  the  other 
was  secretary  of  a  corporation.  “  Now,”  she  said,  “  I 
would  just  like  to  have  you  explain  to  me  how  you  could 
tell  that.” 

The  reply  was,  taking  the  first  one  :  “  Here  is  a  strong, 
clear,  legible,  and  practiced  hand,  very  methodical,  without 
blot,  change,  or  erasure  from  beginning  to  end,  and  is  writ¬ 
ten  in  a  round-shaded  hand,  which  must  have  been  learned 
more  than  forty-five  years  ago,  as  that  school  of  writing 
has  not  been  taught  in  this  country  within  that  period. 
This,  with  the  dignified,  deliberate  appearance  of  the  writ¬ 
ing  fixes  his  age  at  over  sixty  years,  while  the  practiced 
style  of  writing  indicates  a  large  experience  in  the  business 
world.  The  good  judgment,  taste,  and  accuracy  manifested 
in  the  writing  show  corresponding  traits  in  business;  while 
the  concise,  clear,  and  intelligent  statement  of  the  subject- 
matter  is  indicative  of  an  able,  clear,  and  comprehensive 
grasp  of  business  affairs.” 


VERY  SIMPLE  FACTS. 


28l 


As  to  the  other  letter  he  said :  “This  is  an  elegant  Spen¬ 
cerian  hand,  which  must  have  been  learned  at  a  much  more 
recent  date,  and  hence  by  a  younger  man.  It  is  written 
with  great  facility,  indicating  young  and  trained  muscles  in 
immediate  practice,  and  the  composition  and  subject-matter 
is  such  as  to  indicate  a  mind  trained  and  familiar  with  the 
business  world.  Here,  therefore,  is  a  man  not  above 
medium  life  and  possessed  of  the  requisite  qualifications  for 
the  active  duties  of  the  secretary  or  chief  clerk  of  some 
large  business  enterprise.” 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 


DERMAL  LINES  OF  THE  THUMB  AS  A  MEANS  OF  PERSONAL 

IDENTITY. 

Those  who  have  read  the  ingenious  and  fascinating  story 
of  “  Pudd’nhead  Wilson,”  by  Mark  Twain,  or  those  who 
have  witnessed  its  performance  upon  the  stage,  have  doubt¬ 
less  speculated  as  to  whether  it  could  have  any  real  founda¬ 
tion  in  fact,  and,  if  so,  whether  it  could  be  made  in  any 


By  the  accompanying  cut  are  presented  facsimile  impressions  of  the  dermal 
furrows  of  the  right  and  left  thumbs  of  four  different  persons.  Those  of  the 
right  thumbs  are  below.  Their  difference  is  too  radical  to  admit  of  even  a 
detailed  comparison. 


IDENTITY  OF  DERMAL  LINES.  283 

way  serviceable  in  the  detection  of  crime,  or  in  establishing 
a  person’s  identity. 

That  it  may  be  most  effectively  employed  as  an  adjunct 
to  the  rogues’  gallery  for  fixing  the  identity  of  criminals 
there  can  be  no  doubt,  since,  from  various  experiments 
performed  by  the  writer,  it  has  been  demonstrated  that 
impressions  made  from  the  dermal  furrows  of  the  thumb 
or  finger  of  no  two  persons  can  be  sufficiently  identical, 
when  inspected  under  a  microscope,  to  be  mistaken  one  for 
the  other ;  and  that  it  may,  in  some  rare  instances,  be  a 
powerful  agency  for  the  detection  of  criminals  is  highly 
probable. 


INDEX. 


AGE. 

Abnormal  conditions,  writing  affected  by .  47 

Abuse  of  witnesses  by  attorneys .  1x4 

Acid,  gallic,  use  of  in  ink . 261 

Acid,  hydrochloric .  269 

Acid,  nitric,  use  of  in  ink .  261 

Acid,  oxalic .  271 

A  clever  scheme . , .  127 

Adams,  John,  autograph  of . . .  38 

Adams,  Mrs.  Katharine  J.,  murder  of .  217 

Address  upon  wrapper  of  poison  package .  223 

Added  or  changed  entries  in  books  of  account .  115 

Adult  writing  . .  21 

“Alike  as  two  peas” .  28 

Alizarin  in  ink .  262 

“  All  coons  look  alike  ”  to  Jones .  73 

Ambidextrous  writing .  49 

Analytical  comparison,  examples  of .  104 

Astor,  John  Jacob,  autograph  of . 39 

A  recent  signature  used  for  an  old  one .  1 7 1 

Backhand  writing . 46 

Baker  will  contest,  Toronto  (illustrated) .  17 1 

Barnes,  General  W.  H.  L. ,  writing  of. .  50 

Barnet,  Henry  C.,  poisoning  of. .  218 

Beauregard,  G.  T.,  autograph  of .  41 

Becker,  Charles .  2x2 

Bingham,  Hon.  Harry,  ex-Justice  of  Supreme  Court .  165 

Bird  case  of  forgery .  106 

Blackboard,  use  of  in  court  not  objectionable .  91 

Blaisdell,  John  T .  193 

Blank  spaces  filled  show  change  in  writing .  58 

Books  fraudulently  made  up  .  .  .  .  .  116 

Botkin  murder  trial,  the  (illustrated) .  197 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  writing  of .  27 


286 


INDEX. 


Calvin,  Delano  C.,  Surrogate  New  York .  82 

Cantwell,  T.  W.,  handwriting  expert .  229 

Carvalho,  alleged  handwriting  expert. .  234 

Chamberlain,  D.  H .  64 

Changed  power  of  attorney . . .  65 

Character,  divination  of  from  writing .  .  277 

Choate,  Rufus,  autograph  and  portrait .  38 

Cisco,  John  J.,  case  of . .  61 

Clay,  Henry,  autograph  of .  39 


Cockburn,  Lord  Chief  Justice,  on  “Experts” .  79 

Cockey,  C.  E. ,  writing  of .  51 

Collum-Blaisdell,  alleged  forgery  (illustrated) .  192 

Columbus .  9 

Complication  of  handwriting .  19 

Conclusions,  from  comparison  of  writing,  certainty  of. .  101 

Conkling,  Roscoe,  autograph  of .  35 

Conspirators  sentenced .  144 

Convincing  case  of  expert  testimony . 61 

Cooper,  Peter,  writing  of. .  26 

Copernicus .  9 

Cornish,  Harry  S .  216 

Correspondents  recognized  by  their  writing .  33 

Custom-house  case,  New  York .  59 

Cuvier .  10 

Cyanide  of  mercury  a  rare  poison .  218 


Davis,  Andrew  J.,  will  contest  (illustrated) .  153 

Disraeli  quoted .  19 

De  la  Roncier,  remarkable  French  case .  75 

Dermal  lines,  identity  of  (illustrated) .  282 

Different  hands  cannot  write  alike .  23 

Different  movements  produce  different  writing .  23 

Different  writings,  to  the  novice,  often  look  alike .  73 

Dillon,  ex-Judge  .  106 

Distinction  between  handwritings,  absolute .  73 

Disguised  writing .  93 

Disguised  writing  versus  imitated .  94 

Divination  from  handwriting,  explained .  281 

Dodge,  J.  A .  T59 

Dodge-Raymond  case  (illustrated) .  159 


INDEX. 


287 


Eccentric  persons  have  writing  to  correspond .  33 

Eisenschimel,  card  handwriting  expert .  198 

Edmonds,  Miss,  strange  case  of  poisoning .  74 

Electricity .  10 

Eosine,  date  of  its  use  in  ink . .  260 

Erasures,  chemical,  discovery  and  treatment  of .  268 

Erasures,  how  discovered .  268 

Erasures  made  by  acids .  117 

Erwin,  the  case  of .  125 

Everett  versus  Wilkinson,  example  of  disguised  writing.  .  .  .  96 

Expert,  definition  of.  . 87 

Expert  evidence,  definition  of .  86 

Expert,  one  incompetent  or  mercenary .  229 

Experts  and  “  experts  ” .  no 

Expert  should  not  be  retained .  89 

Experts  in  English  courts . 74 

Expert’s  opinion  versus  the  writer  of  signature .  ...  .59,  61 

Experts  should  be  court  officers .  88 

Experts  under  Roman  law .  74 

Expert  testimony,  a  remarkable  triumph  of. .  161 

Expert,  the  man  who  knows .  15 

Fair,  James  G.,  forged  will  of  (illustrated) .  147 

Fair,  James  G.,  forgeries  against  estate  of .  145 

Ferrocyanide  of  potassium .  270 

Field,  Cyrus  W.,  autograph  of .  35 

Finger  movement .  43 

First  National  Bank  of  Trenton,  N.  J.,  versus  New  York  Bank.  .  .  103 

Force  of  habit,  peculiar  instance  of .  21 1 

Forged  deed  (illustrated) . 166 

Forger,  how  he  fails .  146 

Forger  identified  in  his  forgery .  124 

Forger  imitated  a  signature  too  old .  124 

Forgery,  by  free-hand,  evidence  of,  example  of .  72 

Forgery,  by  tracing  evidence  of,  example  of .  69 

Forgery,  frequency  of. .  119 

Forgery,  internal  evidence  of  .  69 

Forgery,  methods  of .  68 

Frazer,  Dr.  Persifer,  handwriting  expert . 229 

Fuller,  Warren,  forgery  (illustrated) . 121 

Fursman,  Edgar  L.,  New  York  Supreme  Court,  on  experts .  80 


288 


INDEX. 

Garfield,  James  G.,  autograph  of 
Garfield,  James  G.,  writing  of  .  . 

Gault,  William,  case  of.  . 

Girard,  Stephen,  autograph  of.  .  . 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  autograph  of. 

Glycerine,  use  of  in  ink  . 

Goff,  Recorder . 

Gordon  will  contest  (illustrated). 

Graphology . . 

Graphology,  a  curious  case  of.  .  . 
Greeley,  Horace,  writing  of  .... 

Griffith,  G.  J . 

Gum  arabic,  use  of  in  ink . 


187 

61 

39 

35 

264 

219 

173 

278 

279 

24 

106 

264 


Habit,  force  of,  in  writing .  47 

Habit  of  writing,  what,  and  how  formed .  20 

Hagan,  W.  E.,  handwriting  expert  .  229 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  autograph  of .  40 

Hammond,  "Dr.  William .  56 

Hancock,  John,  autograph  and  portrait  of. .  38 

Harpster,  A.  A .  221 

Hay,  Colonel  Edwin  B.,  handwriting  expert .  229 

Herschel,  — .  10 

Howland  will  case .  58 

Hunter- Long  forgeries  (illustrated) .  205 

Impersonal  writing,  autographs. .  36 

Impossibility  that  two  handwritings  can  be  identical .  19 

Improbability  of  signatures  being  duplicated .  58 

Incompetent  and  mercenary  experts  sought  for .  1 13 

Ingeniously  forged  will . 77 

Ingersoll,  Robert  G. ,  autograph  of. .  35 

Ink  and  pencil  erasures .  116 

Ink,  chemical  test  of.  .  .  .  124 

Ink-lines,  crossing  of .  67 

Inks,  ammonia  test  of. .  .  267 

Inks,  chemical  tests  of . 265-267 

Inks,  colored . 263 

Inks,  copying,  the  property  of .  262 

Inks,  copying,  the  test  of .  262 

Inks  for  typewriting  .  265 


INDEX. 


289 


Inks,  kinds  of .  260 

Inks,  ruling .  265 

Inks,  safety . .  263 

Inks,  stamping,  composition  of. .  264 

Inks,  sympathetic .  264 

Inks,  testing  the  color  of .  270 

Inks,  to  determine  the  age  of. . 265-267 

Iron,  use  of  in  inks  .  261 

Inserted  sheets  in  documents .  115 

Intoxication,  how  manifest  in  writing .  51 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  writing  of .  48 

Jewell,  Charles  A . 160 

Junius  Letters,  abstract  of  report  on . 243-254 

Kelley,  B.  F.,  handwriting  expert .  229 

Kennedy,  Dr.,  murder  case  of  (illustrated) .  198 

Kinsley,  William  J.,  handwriting  expert . .  199,  229 

Knowledge  of  writing  from  having  seen  one  write .  85 

Kytka,  Theodore,  handwriting  expert .  198 

Lavater .  278 

Lederle,  Dr.  Ernest  J .  205 

Lee,  R.  E.,  autograph  of. .  41 

Left  hand,  writing  with  (example) .  47 

Letters  alike  as  to  type  but  characteristically  unlike .  24 

Lewis  will  contest  (illustrated) .  130 

“Like,  but  oh!  how  different!”  .  28 

Lincoln,  A.,  autograph  of .  40 

Linnaeus  .  10 

Logwood,  in  ink . 262 

Mackey,  J.  W .  .  29 

Magone,  — ,  Collector  United  States  Custom  House .  59 

Manufactured  writing,  how  proved . 17  7- 179 

Mason,  Guy  Oppelt .  53 

McClusky,  Captain,  Chief  of  Detectives,  New  York .  217 

Molineux,  Roland  B.,  trial  of  for  murder  (illustrated) .  216 

Molineux’s  writing . 223,  224,  225,  231 

Molineux’s  writing  compared . 235 

Molineux’s  writing,  medley  of.  .  232 

Morey-Garfield  forged  letter  (illustrated) .  184 


290 


INDEX. 

Morey-Garfield  letter  analyzed .  188 

Morse,  — .  10 

Movement,  combined  finger  and  wrist  .  \ .  43 

Movement,  finger . 43 

Movement,  finger  and  forearm  combined .  \ .  43 

Movement,  finger  and  whole  arm  combine^ .  43 

Movement,  finger  and  wrist  combined .  43 

Movements  in  writing  (example)  ....  .  44 

Murdock  case  of  alleged  forged  note .  180 

Murdock,  William .  180 

Murdock,  William,  alleged  forged  note  (illustrated) . 181-183 

Name  written  in  body-writing  not  like  autograph .  125 

Nationality  of  writing  (illustrated) . 29-32 

“  Ne  plus  ultra”  of  forgery .  212 

Nervous  diseases,  how  they  affect  writing .  56 

New  handwriting  not  created  at  will .  21 

Naone  thing  determines  the  identity  of  writing .  100 

No  two  persons  ever  identically  the  same .  19 

Old  writing,  how  restored . 268,  269 

Olivia,  Princess  of  Cumberland,  case  of. .  74 

One  may  be  certain  as  to  things  unseen .  102 

Opinions  differ  as  to  the  value  of  expert  opinions .  16 

Original,  persons  have  an  original  style  of  writing .  .  33 

Osborne,  James  W. ,  Assistant  District- Attorney .  216 

Osborn,  A.  S.,  handwriting  expert .  229 

Paine,  James  Henry,  miser,  case  of  (illustrated) .  .  .  64 

Paine,  Joseph  E.,  handwriting  expert .  61 

Palimpsest,  use  of .  78 

Paper,  calendering  of. .  273 

Paper,  how  made . 272-275 

Paper,  materials  of . 272-275 

Paper,  resizing  of .  274 

Paper  substituted  for  blackboard .  91 

Paper,  water-mark  of .  274 

Peculiar  history  of  a  note.  ...  .  180 

Peculiar  law  as  to  handwriting  experts .  208 

Pencil  erasures,  how  deciphered .  270 


INDEX. 


29I 


Pencils,  aniline  and  colored .  264 

Personalities  of  handwriting  innumerable. . . .  20 

Personality  comes  unconsciously  into  writing  .  29 

Persons  do  not  always  know  their  own  signature .  59 

Peirce,  Professor . 58 

Peirce,  Thomas  May,  handwriting  expert .  207 

Photographs,  use  of .  92 

Photographs,  microscopic,  of  retouched  line .  177 

Potash,  prussiate  of. .  265 

Raised  draft  by  Charles  Becker  (illustrated) .  213 

Raised  note,  how  detected  (illustrated) .  63 

Reasons  for  an  opinion  should  be  given . . . .  91 

Redfield  versus  Redfield  (illustrated) .  176 

Remarkable  case  of  disputed  identity .  82 

Resemblance  may  be  striking,  but  no  actual  likeness .  28 

Romance  and  art  ingeniously  conspire .  120 

Russell,  Miser,  case  of .  126 

Saunders,  Justice .  74 

School  hand,  sameness  of. . '  .  20 

School  hand  versus  adult  hand  (illustrated) .  21 

Seaver,  A.  W. ,  handwriting  expert . .  106 

Several  styles  of  one  letter,  value  of,  in  a  comparison .  99 

Seward,  Wm  H.,  autograph  of .  40 

Sex  in  writing .  42 

Signatures  differ  from  one’s  other  writing .  57 

Signatures  monogrammic  in  character .  58 

Signatures  never  written  twice  the  same .  57 

Slow  hand  versus  rapid  thought  (example) .  23 

Sources  of  expert  knowledge .  84 

Specialist .  9 

Specialized  skill .  10 

Special  skill,  the  value  of,  ever  recognized .  74 

Spinner,  S.  E.,  autograph  of.  ...  . . 35 

Steam .  9 

Straight  line,  the  personality  of. . 13 

Styles  of  writing . 45-46 

Sugar,  use  of  in  ink .  264 

Superficial  likeness  of  writing .  24 


292 


INDEX. 


Teaching  personal  writing . 29 

Tyrrell,  John  F.,  handwriting  expert .  229 

Test  for  inks,  table  of. .  266 

Three-crescent  paper  used  by  Molineux .  225 

Three  insuperable  difficulties  in  way  of  forger .  22 

The  same  person  never  writes  twice  the  sfime .  28 

Tollman,  Henry  L.,  handwriting  expert .  229 

Traced  forgeries  not  necessarily  exact  copies  .  69 

Tracing  as  a  means  of  forgery . 68 

Tricks  of  attorneys . . .  1 14 

Twain,  Mark .  282 

Typewriting,  identification  of .  117 


Vanadium .  : .  265 

Value  of  a  series  of  coincidents  as  between  writings .  101 

Value  of  a  series  of  coincidents,  illustrated  by  dice  throwing .  102 

Walker,  Dr.  Mary  E. ,  autograph  of .  35 

Wardwell,  John  H .  64 

Watt . 10 

Webster,  Daniel,  autograph  of  .  40 

What  constitutes  personality  in  writing.  ...  .  21 

Whately,  Archbishop .  277 

What  tends  to  qualify  an  expert .  . .  15 

Whittaker,  cadet,  case  of  (illustrated) .  190 

Who  may  testify  as  an  expert .  .  85 

Why  experts  differ .  no 

“Wilson,  Pudd’nhead” .  282 

Writing  affected  by  nervous  diseases .  56 

Writing,  angular,  semi-angular,  round,  upright  and  back  slant 

(examples  of) .  45-46 

Writing  changed  in  slope  (example) .  95 

Writing  changes  With  circumstances .  58 

Writing,  family,  resemblance  of . 33 

Writing,  grotesque  and  inimitable  (examples) .  34 

Writing  habit,  how  formed . 20 

Writing  habit  unconscious .  20 

Writing,  highly  personal,  not  easily  mistaken  .  37 

Writing,  however  executed,  retains  its  characteristics .  48 

Writing,  how  learned .  20 


INDEX.  293 

Writing  impaired  by  age  or  infirmity .  51 

Writing,  markedly  personal .  10 1 

Writing  modified  by  circumstances .  28 

Writing,  nationality  of  American,  English  and  French  (examples)  30 

Writing,  novel  specimens  of .  50 

Writing  over  folds  and  ink-lines  (illustrated) .  62 

Writing,  the  joint  product  of  mind  and  hand .  20 

Writing  under  hypnotism  (example) . . .  53 

Writing  under  intoxication  (example) . .  .  51 

Writing  with  both  hands  simultaneously  (example) .  51 

Writing  with  one  movement  cannot  be  reproduced  with  another.  .  44 

Writing  with  palsied  hand  (example) .  52 

Wrongfully  convicted  against  expert  testimony .  75 

Youngs,  Theophilus,  case  of .  82 


d 


GETTY  CENTER  LIBRARY 


3  3125  00125  3406 


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